could not change directory to "/home/corey/scripts": Permission denied

Question

I get the error message...

could not change directory to "/home/corey/scripts": Permission denied

... when I run the following script ...

#!/bin/bash
sudo -u postgres psql < setup_dev_db.sql
read -rsp $'Press any key to continue...\n' -n 1 key

... the contents of setup_dev_db.sql are executed without any issues, but the error is annoying.

Can I get rid of it?

Answer 1

Postgres wants to create a $HOME/.psql_history file, where it will store all your queries and commands from the psql client. It may well want to do something else at $HOME, but I don't see any evidence in the form of other hidden files. And it won't actually create the history file unless you're using psql interactively, which you're not.

I had this exact same problem and found this question, but the accepted answer wasn't acceptable to me -- I shouldn't have to grant postgres permission to leave a trail of my queries in whatever directory I happen to be in when I run a script!

@Corey, the solution you mentioned in your comment (cd /tmp before calling sudo...) is probably the best. psql won't create this file in /tmp (I'm sure that's deliberate, because it could allow unprivileged users to read the file).

There are two other solutions I can think of :

1. Run psql in a login shell by adding -i to your command

   sudo -i -u postgres psql < setup_dev_db.sql
   

   This will set $HOME to postgres's HOME directory, listed in /etc/passwd. For Ubuntu, that's /var/lib/postgres. But since you're piping in commands, it won't create a .psql_history file. However, if you use interactive psql, anyone else with sudo privileges on the machine will have access to your command history.

   I'm not sure if there are any other negative consequences to running a login shell in this situation.

2. Run psql as a less-privileged user, e.g.

   $ psql dev_db -hlocalhost corey_dev -W < setup_dev_db.sql
   

   If this is a problem because you leave postgres user creation to your setup_dev_db.sql script, and you don't have any users yet, just add a createuser command in your script first, something like this:

   $ sudo -u postgres createuser corey_dev -P
   

   and perhaps ...

   $ sudo -u postgres createdb dev_db "Dev database"
   

NOTE: When using the psql client interactively (which you're not, here), if you see a message like could not change directory to "/home/corey/scripts": Permission denied message ****, psql is going to write to /var/lib/postgres/.psql_history (or wherever its $HOME is)! If you've ever seen that warning when using interactive psql, go look--you'll probably find a hidden history file.

Answer 2

To change to a directory, a user must have the 'x' permission for that directory.

I assume you are running the script from '/home/corey/scripts'. When 'sudo -u postgres' changes the current user to 'postgres' it attempts to set the working directory for 'postgres' to the working directory it was called from generating the error you're seeing.

Make sure that the user 'postgres' has permission 'x' for '/home/corey/scripts'.

Answer 3

You may use sudo -u postgres -c your_command.bash or su postgres -c your_command.bash. You could also use,

su - postgres your_command.bash

This will ensure that you acquired all the postgres account enviroment.

Answer 4

For me this did the trick, pay attention to quotes (')

sudo -Hiu postgres 'pg_dump --column-inserts --data-only --table=someTable entities_db > /var/backups/anywhere/$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)_someTable.sql'

Note the -Hiufor sudo, or use su - postgres

you can also put that in a cronjob for root with crontab -e