Copying of data from hard drive permissioning problem

[anneCarlson]

I recently got a new computer, and coppied the application postgres and the Library/Application\ Support/Postgres/var-10/ directory to my new computer. When I try to start the server I get
bin/sh: /Users/annecarlson/Library/Application Support/Postgres/var-10/postgresql.log: Permission denied pg_ctl: could not start server
even after I chmodded the entire directory to 777 permissions. How do I fix this error?

[jakob]

What's the result of the following command:

ls -l /Users/annecarlson/Library/Application Support/Postgres/var-10

[anneCarlson]

-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 6148 Feb 27 2018 .DS_Store
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 3 Nov 8 2017 PG_VERSION
drwx------@ 10 annecarlson _postgres 340 Sep 25 17:25 base
drwx------@ 62 annecarlson _postgres 2108 Oct 4 13:52 global
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_commit_ts
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_dynshmem
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 4513 Nov 8 2017 pg_hba.conf
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 1636 Nov 8 2017 pg_ident.conf
drwx------@ 5 annecarlson _postgres 170 Oct 4 17:19 pg_logical
drwx------@ 4 annecarlson _postgres 136 Nov 8 2017 pg_multixact
drwx------@ 3 annecarlson _postgres 102 Oct 4 13:51 pg_notify
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_replslot
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_serial
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_snapshots
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Oct 4 13:51 pg_stat
drwx------@ 6 annecarlson _postgres 204 Oct 5 08:16 pg_stat_tmp
drwx------@ 3 annecarlson _postgres 102 Sep 27 19:33 pg_subtrans
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_tblspc
drwx------@ 2 annecarlson _postgres 68 Nov 8 2017 pg_twophase
drwx------@ 8 annecarlson _postgres 272 Oct 4 17:04 pg_wal
drwx------@ 16 annecarlson _postgres 544 Sep 27 19:32 pg_xact
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 88 Nov 8 2017 postgresql.auto.conf
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 22770 Nov 8 2017 postgresql.conf
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 837 Nov 8 15:47 postgresql.log
-rwx------@ 1 annecarlson _postgres 144 Oct 4 13:51 postmaster.opts

[jakob]

What about var-10 directory itself?

ls -l "/Users/annecarlson/Library/Application Support/Postgres"

Where is that _postgres group coming from?

Are you using the Postgres.app GUI?

[anneCarlson]

drwx------@ 27 _postgres _postgres 918 Nov 8 15:46 var-10
Yes, I am using the postgres.app GUI

[jakob]

Looks like you need to chown that dir itself

chown -R annecarlson  "/Users/annecarlson/Library/Application Support/Postgres"

[jakob]

(probably need to prefix that with sudo)

[jakob]

(Postgres.app runs as your user, it doesn't use the _postgres system user.)

[anneCarlson]

Interesting. Now I get the following log error when I click start
2018-11-08 15:57:10.744 EST [11906] FATAL: could not create lock file "postmaster.pid": Permission denied

[anneCarlson]

I assume my permissions are still messed up? I'm the group "_postgres" is incorrect?

[jakob]

The group shouldn't matter. Postgres.app runs under your user, which I assume is "annecarlson". You can type whoami at the command line to see your user name.

Some other PostgreSQL installations may create a "postgresql" user, and run the server using that user, but we don't do that because it causes lots of headaches.

PostgreSQL needs to be allowed to create a file named "postmaster.pid" inside the data directory. Here's what permissions look like on my Mac:

$ whoami
jakob
$ ls -l ~/Library/Application\ Support/Postgres
drwx------  26 jakob  staff   832 Sep 20 16:27 var-11