Launch failure when using Root

[bevel-zgates]

Hey guys, ran into a failure when trying to launch as root within WSL (Postgres failed to launch...). Switching back to a non-priv user seems to have fixed the issue. I believe the issue comes from trying to launch the postgres as root and not running the service as a different user, here's what I get when trying to run it directly:

root@Zindows:~/.steampipe/db/12.1.0/postgres/bin# ./postgres
"root" execution of the PostgreSQL server is not permitted.
The server must be started under an unprivileged user ID to prevent
possible system security compromise.  See the documentation for
more information on how to properly start the server.

[e-gineer]

Thanks @bevel-zgates for reporting this! Hadn't occurred to us to try installing as root

Interesting problem ... I guess we could:

1. Install a new user for running the postgres service. (We run embedded, so don't currently create a new user for it.)
2. Refuse to install steampipe as root.

I think 2 is probably best?

[bevel-zgates]

It's not a big deal either way, it just seemed most straightforward to me when I was dropping it into a container.

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On Fri, Feb 12, 2021, 17:42 Nathan Wallace ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks @bevel-zgates <https://github.com/bevel-zgates> for reporting this! Hadn't occurred to us to try installing as root Interesting problem ... I guess we could: 1. Install a new user for running the postgres service. (We run embedded, so don't currently create a new user for it.) 2. Refuse to install steampipe as root. I think 2 is probably best? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#167 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASTN65MZV2DG5ISGCSZ2P63S6W4GVANCNFSM4XQ4D4AQ> .

[kaidaguerre]

Hey @bevel-zgates thanks a lot for the report.

 it just seemed most straightforward to me when I was dropping it into a container.

I'd be really interested to understand your use case here - I wonder if you could expand this a little?

Thanks!
kai

[bevel-zgates]

I've batched quite a few of these queries into a script then packaged steampipe with the script with environment variables/secrets per client per region. I then use a scheduler to run this for each of my clients and can generate this standard report package fairly easily. I can scale to as many as are needed and get nice normalized data.

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On Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 8:19 AM kaidaguerre ***@***.***> wrote: Hey @bevel-zgates <https://github.com/bevel-zgates> thanks a lot for the report. it just seemed most straightforward to me when I was dropping it into a container. I'd be really interested to understand your use case here - I wonder if you could expand this a little? Thanks! kai — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#167 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASTN65MDY3IEPVFX53BHT7LS7EUQHANCNFSM4XQ4D4AQ> .

-- Zach Gates [email protected] 737.999.1889

[kaidaguerre]

@bevel-zgates thanks for the details - it's really useful and interesting to see how people use the tool.