Comments on: Creating New Accounts in PostgreSQL

By: aihtdikh

aihtdikh — Tue, 26 May 2009 07:46:59 +0000

I know this is a bit late, but… The “ERROR: database “postgres” already exists” problem is caused by missing quotes. su wants the command and its arguments to be passed in as one argument. So sudo su postgres -c “createdb blah” will create a database called blah. sudo su postgres -c createdb blah (no quotes) seems to be using the default db - which is the same as the username.

By: Ashesh

Ashesh — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:20:59 +0000

Great post! Was very helpful to me!

By: lautaro

lautaro — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:59:23 +0000

Hi Daz, you can also do:

$ sudo su postgres -c psql postgres=# CREATE USER daz WITH PASSWORD 'mypassword'; postgres=# \q

Instead "ALTER", supposing "sudo su postgres -c createuser daz" wasn't executed.

Thanks, and nice blog.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:50:10 +0000

Strangely, was having the same problem and also the problem that it would not take my password when I tried no sign on. Newbies answer worked for me and made the database and now I can sign on.

By: Newbie

Newbie — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:02:01 +0000

$ sudo su postgres -c createdb xyz â€¦ and got the error

createdb: database creation failed: ERROR: database â€œpostgresâ€ already exists

Gave me exactly the same error message so I separated the steps :

user01~$ sudo su postgres postgres~$ createdb xyz CREATE DATABASE postgres~$ exit user01~$

Worked for me

By: Setup PostgreSQL Database server in Ubuntu « Going GNU

Setup PostgreSQL Database server in Ubuntu « Going GNU — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:05:51 +0000

[…] Add new users. http://hocuspokus.net/2007/11/05/creating-new-accounts-in-postgresql/ […]

By: Newkidontheblock

Newkidontheblock — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:45:45 +0000

Hi, No...I did $ sudo su postgres -c createdb xyz ... and got the error

createdb: database creation failed: ERROR: database â€œpostgresâ€ already exists

then I changed to the su user I already created ... and I did

$ sudo su newkid -c createdb xyz

and I still got the same error:

ERROR: database â€œpostgresâ€ already exists.

I however Installed phppgadmin and logged in as the newkid user then created the database xyz from there and it worked.

i don't know why it won't do it from the command line.

Cheers

By: Daz

Daz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:30:40 +0000

Hi ya,

Right, need to check a couple of things first...

You are running this command as your user aren't you, not the 'postgres' user?
Your user account does have root priveleges?
Are you running this command: $ sudo su postgres -c createdb postgres?

If it is the last one (as the error message you are getting suggests this), you are trying to create a database that already exists - you don't need to create a database for the postgres user as there is one created by default upon install. You only need to create a database for other users that you create.

Let me know if you're still having troubles.

By: Newkidontheblock

Newkidontheblock — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:08:27 +0000

Hi Darren,

sudo su postgres -c createdb daz

This did not work for me....I've been having this problem since and beginning to think postgresql is a pain }:)

it came up with this error

createdb: database creation failed: ERROR: database "postgres" already exists

can you help ..I need to get this right..cheers