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To: postgres@postgres.Berkeley.EDU, Brent.Burton@math.tamu.edu
Subject: Re: User semantics in Postgres
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 13:01:15 +0000
From: Alan Byrne <alan@nova.ucd.ie>
Resent-To: postgres-redist@postgres.Berkeley.EDU
Resent-Date: Sat, 03 Dec 94 05:01:23 -0800
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> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am trying to create a gateway between Postgres and HTTP and I'm
> running into some problems.
> 
> To make a long story short, httpd normally runs as user nobody.  I added
> nobody to the database as userid 65534 (same as unix), but postgres
> later reports it as -2 (the 16-bit signed representation of 65534).
> Thinking this may be the problem, I then create user stupid (uid 25)
> and add stupid to the database.  In the meantime, httpd is restarted
> and configured to run as stupid (so the gateway will be setuid stupid).
> 
> Neither of the above techniques worked; the monitor fails with the error:
> "/usr/local/postgres/bin/monitor: could not find a valid user name"
> 
> Can somebody please explain what the monitor looks for concerning
> uid/eid's?  Has anybody else solved a similar problem?
> 

We have developed a http/postgres system here and have had no problems once
the httpd is configured to run as a "normal" user.  Common practice is to set
up a uid and group, say www, for the httpd to run as.  This is also useful
when setting up access control.

Alan Byrne,
Projects Group Manager,
Computing Services,
University College Dublin.
http://slarti.ucd.ie/

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