Re: Failure to Start Postmaster/postgres

John DeSoi <desoi(at)pgedit(dot)com> writes:
> On Feb 15, 2005, at 7:44 PM, Daniel Blavos wrote:
>> ... running Debian GNU/Linux Woody 3.0, on a self-built server running
>> DocMGR (http://docmgr.sourceforge.net/[That one, there are so many
>> versions of that program out]), Apache 1.3.33, Postgres, and multiple
>> security programs. When I reboot my machine, Postgres will not
>> startup, and is not able to be forced to run after I have logged in
>> and tried to manually start it. I check all of the error logs on my
>> Postgres user and in my root user's/var/log directory, and there is
>> no sign of it failing.

> PostgreSQL is very good about telling you about startup problems, so if
> you don't see anything I'm wondering if you are looking in the correct
> logs. Take a look at the startup command for PostgreSQL (usually pg_ctl
> start) and check the -l option to see where the log file is written.

Is one of those "multiple security programs" SELinux?

SELinux is entirely capable of arbitarily suppressing the log output you
need to see. (I'm still trying to persuade Dan Walsh that suppressing
output to /dev/tty is a horrible idea :-() If you've got it set to
enforcing mode, try backing off to permissive mode.

regards, tom lane