Learn how to resolve the PostgreSQL error Initdb Cannot Be Run as Root from our experts. Our PostgreSQL Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

PostgreSQL error Initdb Cannot Be Run as Root | Resolved

If you have been coming across the error message “Initdb cannot be run as root”, you are in luck.

According to our experts, this error often pops up when we attempt to run the initdb command as the root user on a PostgreSQL installation.

However, PostgreSQL recommends that we do not run the database server as the root user for security reasons.

We can easily resolve this issue as seen below:

• First, we have to create a non-root user in order to run the PostgreSQL server. We can create a new user with this command:

  sudo adduser postgres

  The above code creates a user named “postgres” that we can use for managing the PostgreSQL installation.
• Alternatively, we can use the sudo command to run initdb as a different user if we have administrative privileges. For instance. If we have a user named “postgres,” we can run the following command:

  sudo -u postgres initdb

  As a result, the above will execute initdb as the “postgres” user.

Let us know which one of the above approaches helped you resolve the PostgreSQL error Initdb Cannot Be Run as Root.

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Conclusion

To conclude, our Support Techs demonstrated how to resolve the Initdb Cannot Be Run as Root error with ease.