Postgres /root": Permission denied

Question

why on ubuntu 14.10 every time that i try to start the postgres on:

sudo -p 'sudo password: ' -u postgres /usr/lib/postgresql/9.4/bin/initdb -D /mnt/postgresql/9.4/data

show this:

could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres". This user must also own the server process.

initdb: invalid locale settings; check LANG and LC_* environment variables

yeah, another guy recommended to post this type of question here — dcalixto, Sep 01 '15 at 04:30
No problem. I'm just cross-linking so if someone finds one they can see there might be more info at the other. — Craig Ringer, Sep 01 '15 at 05:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 01 '15 at 07:59

There are three parts in the output:

could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied: your 'sudo' succeeds but your postgres user fails to access the home of root. You may check for the setting of homedirectory for postgres in /etc/passwd.
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres". This user must also own the server process. : This is the normal permissions reminder from initdb. So you know initdb started regardles of failed directory change.
initdb: invalid locale settings; check LANG and LC_* environment variables: here initdb fails for real due to missing locale settings.

I think You need to check your sudo configuration and make sure your postgres user has a proper environment before calling initdb.

Postgres /root": Permission denied

1 Answers1