Excerpts from Tom Lane's message of mar ago 21 10:47:41 -0400 2012:
> * pg_ctl crashes on Win32 when neither PGDATA nor -D specified
>
> I'm not sure that this qualifies as a release blocker either --- isn't
> it a plain-vanilla pre-existing bug? And what does the proposed patch
> have to do with the stated problem? (Even if you define the problem
> as "make sure we're restricted" rather than the stated symptom, the
> patch looks rather fragile and Rube Goldbergian ... isn't there a way
> to actually test if we're in a restricted process?)
You mean, test if we're in a restricted process, and then refuse to run
unless that is so? That would be a simple way out of the problem, but
I'm not really sure that it "fixes" the issue because Win32 people
normally expects stuff to run by dropping privs internally.
Maybe that's something we should leave for later, though, and fix 9.2 by
doing what you propose (which is presumably going to be a much simpler
patch). Clearly having pg_ctl just crash is not a good situation.
--
Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services