Bug 832183 – dev-db/postgresql-12.9 fails to start when su is not installed

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: UNCONFIRMED ---

[Description Jaak Ristioja 2022-01-28 08:43:49 UTC]

# /etc/init.d/postgresql-12 start
 * /run/postgresql: correcting mode
 * Starting PostgreSQL 12 ...
/etc/init.d/postgresql-12: line 89: su: command not found
 * Check the log for a possible explanation of the above error.
 * The log may be located at:
 *     /var/lib/postgresql/12/data/postmaster.log
 * Or wherever you configured PostgreSQL 12 to log.                       [ !! ]
 * ERROR: postgresql-12 failed to start

However, on this system there is no "su" installed due to sys-apps/util-linux[-su] and sys-apps/shadow[-su].

[Comment 1 WGH 2022-03-27 23:57:15 UTC]

This also affects the pkg_config in .ebuild (aka emerge --config)

 * Creating the data directory ...
 * Initializing the database ...
/var/tmp/portage/dev-db/postgresql-13.5/temp/environment: line 3012: su: command not found
mv: cannot stat '/var/lib/postgresql/13/data/pg_hba.conf': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat '/var/lib/postgresql/13/data/pg_ident.conf': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat '/var/lib/postgresql/13/data/postgresql.conf': No such file or directory
sed: can't read /etc/postgresql-13/postgresql.conf: No such file or directory

[Comment 2 Gordon Pettey 2022-08-21 23:11:14 UTC]

This is still a problem with the 13 and 14 versions. The package needs to depend on some provider of su if its init script use it, or the init scripts need to be rewritten to not use su.

[Comment 3 Gordon Pettey 2022-08-31 13:29:21 UTC]

Related, #416783 says at some point in the past the init scripts had been changed from ’su’ to ’start-stop-daemon’. That was apparently reverted at some point.

[Comment 4 Gordon Pettey 2023-02-19 00:43:30 UTC]

Submitted PR 29648 on GitHub to fix the pkg_config bit.