Bug 416783 – sys-apps/shadow-4.1.5 dev-db/postgresql-server cannot start via initscript "su: Cannot drop the controlling terminal"

• Status: CONFIRMED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Stefan de Konink 2012-05-20 19:01:13 UTC]

I have a similar problem as decribed below;

http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/msg_0e5fd5b7424eb05bfd016379e08c5058.xml
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.crux.general/4893

I can start postgresql manually. But when started upon boot in runlevel default it fails with;

su: Cannot drop the controlling terminal
The following file(s) are not readable by 'postgres':

Obviously they are readable by postgres, and a /etc/init.d/postgresql-9.1 start, does work. shadow-4.1.5-r2 is installed. I have tried to disable acl, by noacl in the kernel, doesn't make any difference.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Aaron W. Swenson 2012-05-21 02:56:59 UTC]

Try downgrading shadow back to stable. (sys-apps/shadow-4.1.4.3)

As mentioned in one of the threads, there's a regression in su.

[Comment 2 Stefan de Konink 2012-05-21 17:27:48 UTC]

Downgrading works.

[Comment 3 Aaron W. Swenson 2012-12-27 11:43:33 UTC]

PostgreSQL's initscript uses 'start-stop-daemon' instead of 'su' now. (It has for a while, actually.)

This issue is not singular to PostgreSQL, though.