Re: Read db files directly

So what are the two locations in question? Is one /var/lib/pgsql/data and
another one /usr/local/pgsql/data by chance?

You can start another instance of postmaster in that directory by using:

pg_ctl -D <path to data directory> start

example:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data start

If you do a ps -ef | grep data, you should probably see something like:

postgres 20991 1 4 13:33 pts/13 00:00:00 /usr/bin/postmaster -p 5432 -D
/var/lib/pgsql/data

which would tell you that the current instance of postgres is running in
/var/lib/pgsql/data and you need to start the other one up to see what's in
the other location.

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Mingzuo Shen wrote:

> Thanks Scott.
> That is a much clearer way of putting it.
> That old PostgreSQL runs just fine,
> in one place, but I have 50 GB of files in
> another place. PostgreSQL is not reading it.
> How can I persuade this PostgreSQL,
> or any PostgeSQL, to read that 50 GB of files.
> Or any independent tool to read the files.
>
> Tom Lane mentioned "vacuum".
> If only I knew the database name,
> I could try "psql dbname".
> But I don't know the database name either.
> I did run "vacuum" in my new testdb.
>
> Yeah. I guess the previous DBA put those files
> on a different file system,
> and then forgot about them, probably with
> good reason. But as I said, the previous DBA
> is no longer available.
>
> Imagine I send just those files to you,
> and you try to get some text out of them.
> I do not have the SQL used to create
> the tables, no table structures.
>
>
>
> --- Scott Marlowe <smarlowe(at)g2switchworks(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> It sounds like the current postgresql is running in
>> one directory, and
>> you're looking in another directory. If you can see
>> how postgresql was
>> started, does it have a -D switch that shows the
>> directory? My guess is
>> you could chmod 000 the master directory you're
>> looking at right now and
>> postgresql could still startup, because it's not
>> where you think it is.
>
>
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