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postgresqlcentos7pg-ctl

CentOS 7 pg_ctl: could not access directory "/var/lib/pgsql/data": Permission denied

PostgreSQL 10.6 and CentOS 7

pg_ctl status
pg_ctl: could not access directory "/var/lib/pgsql/data": Permission denied`

Wouldn't pg_ctl have access to this, given /var/lib/pgsql/data has ownership postgres:postgres? 

drwx------   3 postgres postgres   94 Nov 14 06:43 pgsql

How can I fix this without creating a vulnerability? Why is this throwing an error?

Additional info (edit):

su - postgres
cd /var/lib
/var/lib/pgsql: drwx------  3 postgres postgres   94 Nov 14 06:43 pgsql
/var/lib/pgsql/10: drwx------ 4 postgres postgres  33 Nov 14 06:38 10
/var/lib/pgsql/10/data:  drwx------ 20 postgres postgres 4096 Nov 15 03:47 data
Solution

  • In UNIX, each process runs with the permissions of the user that starts the executable, not the owner of the executable (unless the SETUID flag is set).

    So it doesn't matter who owns pg_ctl, but you have to be user postgres when you run it.