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Mention that `sudo -u postgres` throws an error

Open ElvisDot opened this issue 11 months ago • 0 comments

Running sudo -u postgres psql --command "CREATE ROLE \"`whoami`\" LOGIN createdb superuser;" in the users home folder within ubuntu WSL throws the following error

could not change directory to "/home/student_name": Permission denied

The student doing the setup is expeceted to be in his /home/username folder. Which on WSL ubuntu by default is not accessible to other users on the system. So when the su command switches user, the postgres user can not access the current directory and that is throwing the permission error.

Which is fine because it does not have to access the current folder at all. It just has to connect to the postgres database which usually works. So the permission warning is followed by the success output CREATE ROLE.

This might not be obvious to someone following the setup for the first time. To reduce useless debugging there is now a note hidden in a spoiler that says that this error is okay.

ElvisDot avatar Mar 05 '24 08:03 ElvisDot