Well, I’m settling into my new MacBook. Nice computer.
Normally I’ve had great success cloning the system to new Macs or simply exchanging the old HD. I couldn’t really do that with the different processor, and I wanted to separate my work and home computer life more. So, I started from scratch, used a different username, set prefs from scratch and played with other options I had ignored or didn’t know had been introduced in the OS.
I took the chance, before installing Xcode, to install all my packages as distributed. Everything seems to be in working order. But I discovered a problem that’s been around since day 1 – when the installer creates the postgres user in the system, it doesn’t set a password. This was intentional – no password = no login for that user. But I missed a small technicality: no password = no password needed to login for that user, * means no login possible. You will notice this if you have your Mac login options set to show a list of users at the login screen, you will see postgres as a choice.
I fixed this in an update, now available. But it’s easily fixed with NetInfo Manager. Open NetInfo Manager and unlock the default domain (the window that opens by default). Select users, then postgres from the lists. Edit the passwd property and change it to * (just a single asterisk). Save and quit.