Security News > 2021 > February > The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality

Register reader "Jim" was the recipient of today's super-urgent callout, which occurred during his final week of paid employment ahead of a well-earned retirement.

Describing himself as the resident PostgreSQL evangelist, he'd been given "The talk" by his boss and, like so many in the IT world, found his department was to be dissolved and the work sent abroad. Luckily, he was near enough to retirement to opt for a life not spent toiling under The Man and used his remaining six months of employment to wind things down.

On the line was an impossibly young IT employee seeking help with the server responsible for the security gate to the underground carpark at the Silicon Valley HQ. "This kid tells me, the garage security gate doesn't work, corporate mucky-muck is pissed he can't park his Mercedes in his reserved space, and demanded IT mobilize all resources to fix this RIGHT NOW.".

His knowledge of PostgreSQL and Linux had made him the man of the hour.

"It was an ancient version of Linux," said Jim, "With a really old version of Postgres and a bunch of weird Japanese software that ran the gate controller. Best I could tell on first look, the gate software was shutting down because it couldn't connect to PostgreSQL, and PostgreSQL was exiting because no logfiles, all had been set to /dev/null."

Sadly, Jim never saw the line of bossmobiles filing into the carpark.

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https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/02/05/on_call/