Assuming that your site administrator has properly started the postmaster process and authorized you to use the database, you (as a user) may begin to start up applications. As previously mentioned, you should add /usr/local/pgsql/bin to your shell search path. In most cases, this is all you should have to do in terms of preparation.
If you get the following error message from a Postgres command (such as psql or createdb):
connectDB() failed: Is the postmaster running at 'localhost' on port '5432'?it is usually because either the postmaster is not running, or you are attempting to connect to the wrong server host. If you get the following error message:
FATAL 1:Feb 17 23:19:55:process userid (2360) != database owner (268)it means that the site administrator started the postmaster as the wrong user. Tell him to restart it as the Postgres superuser.