Re: pg_dump:qemu: uncaught target signal 7 (Bus error) - core dumped
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Srinath Reddy Sadipiralla <srinath2133@gmail.com>
Cc: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>,
tushar <tushar.ahuja@enterprisedb.com>,
"pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org"
<pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2025-12-09T17:49:14Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Srinath Reddy Sadipiralla <srinath2133@gmail.com> writes: > I have a question about the initdb success > message to start the server using pg_ctl. Can we update the -l logfile > suggestion it prints at the end to something like -l > /path/to/datadirectory/logfile instead? "-l logfile" should be read as a recommendation to write to some logfile, not as the literal text of the command. I don't think that putting the log file into the data directory is good practice, either. > Here’s the issue I’m seeing: when PostgreSQL is installed from packages > rather than built from source, the installation requires root privileges > (sudo). > That means directories like bin and lib are owned by root, and > non-superusers > can’t create new files there. > If someone runs initdb from inside the bin directory and then blindly > copy-pastes > the suggested pg_ctl command, pg_ctl will attempt to write the logfile into > the bin directory. All of this seems to be predicated on the idea that someone would cd into the bin directory and try to do work there. I don't understand why we should regard that scenario as sufficiently probable to justify contorting PG's behavior to make it fractionally less dangerous. regards, tom lane