PostgreSQL on Mac OSX - cannot log in as postgres user

Question

I installed postgresql and geodjango on Mac OSX following this tutorial word for word. For some reason

sudo su - postgres 

does not work. I put in my sudo password, but when I type "whoami" it's still my normal user login.

I know there is postgres user after I saw the list from

dscl . -list /Users UniqueID

Any idea why this is happening? I installed PSQL 9.1.1 server version.

Thank you.

Answer 1

The postgres account probably has disabled login rights and/or /bin/false as the login shell.

In this case you had best invoke postgresql commands directly, eg: sudo -u postgres psql

That should work even with a disabled login shell.