That did it (was set to silent_mode = on by default).
Thank you very much.
Tom Lane wrote:
> Tom Wright <tom(dot)c(dot)wright(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>
>> I'm starting it with "postgres -D <datadir>", and it immediately forks
>> into the background....
>>
>
> Perhaps you have silent_mode set in the configuration file? AFAIK the
> postmaster will never fork away from the caller unless that's been set
> in one way or another.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
>