Return-Path: owner-postman Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nobozo.CS.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.4/8.6.3) with SMTP id TAA17250 for postgres-dist; Sun, 27 Mar 1994 19:24:25 -0800 Resent-From: POSTGRES mailing list Resent-Message-Id: <199403280324.TAA17250@nobozo.CS.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: owner-postman@postgres.Berkeley.EDU X-Return-Path: owner-postman Received: from faerie.CS.Berkeley.EDU (faerie.CS.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.149.14]) by nobozo.CS.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.4/8.6.3) with ESMTP id TAA17241 for ; Sun, 27 Mar 1994 19:24:25 -0800 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by faerie.CS.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.4/8.1B) with SMTP id TAA26734; Sun, 27 Mar 1994 19:24:18 -0800 Message-Id: <199403280324.TAA26734@faerie.CS.Berkeley.EDU> X-Authentication-Warning: faerie.CS.Berkeley.EDU: Host localhost didn't use HELO protocol From: aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki) To: Ken Dueker Cc: postgres@postgres.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Re: how to kill locked jobs ? Reply-To: aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki) In-reply-to: Your message of Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:41:32 -0800 <199403280141.RAA20152@newberry.uoregon.edu> Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 19:24:18 -0800 X-Sender: aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU Resent-To: postgres-dist@postgres.Berkeley.EDU X-Mts: smtp Resent-Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 19:24:25 -0800 Resent-XMts: smtp Ken Dueker writes: > i have gotten into situations were the back-end has locked > up when i accidentally re-define index's. Unfortunately, > these jobs are owned by root - and without su password > i cannot kill these hung jobs. I have combed the doc > for clues as to how to change the ownership of the back-end > job to little avail ... any suggestions ? once a process is running as someone, you can't change it to someone else. that's purely a unix thing, not a postgres thing. the *process* can change its own user id, if the executable already has the setuid bit set. if it's spinning, there's nothing you can do except kill it as root. if it's hung (disk wait or zombie), you can probably only reboot the machine. if you aren't sure what i'm talking about, your sysadmin can point you at the right unix documentation. general advice: don't run postgres as root. never, ever, ever, ever. you need to talk to your system administrator or whoever installed postgres. postgres should not have to be setuid and it should definitely (did i say this before?) never, ever be run as root. example badness: postgres lets you load arbitrary object code into a process running as (in your case) root. someone could load some code into the backend that removes *your* home directory. this is also why it's a bad idea to install postgres as "you" instead of creating a postgres user. -- Paul M. Aoki | CS Div., Dept. of EECS, UCB | aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU | Berkeley, CA 94720 | ...!uunet!ucbvax!aoki