rails database setup without sudo access

April 3, 2016 3:32 PM

Can I set up a postgres db without access to root? If not, why not?
posted by city_park to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: Yes. The installation tutorial says:

PostgreSQL can be installed by any unprivileged user; no superuser (root) access is required.

However, you won't be able to use your system's package manager. Instead, you'll have to build it (and any of its dependencies that aren't already installed on the system) from source. See the installation instructions. If you Google for postgres non-root you'll also see some guides people have made.
posted by borsboom at 3:55 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: One annoyance may be that the standard port 80 will be restricted and access will need a port number like: http://www.example.com:8080
posted by sammyo at 5:26 PM on April 3, 2016

Best answer: PostgreSQL doesn't use port 80 by default, sammyo, nor does it speak HTTP (thankfully). Rails can do both but that has no impact on the database nor on connecting to it.
posted by vsync at 6:30 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]