September 26, 2024: PostgreSQL 17 Released!
Unsupported versions: 7.0 / 6.5 / 6.4
This documentation is for an unsupported version of PostgreSQL.
You may want to view the same page for the current version, or one of the other supported versions listed above instead.

Starting postmaster

Nothing can happen to a database unless the postmaster process is running. As the site administrator, there are a number of things you should remember before starting the postmaster. These are discussed in the installation and configuration sections of this manual. However, if Postgres has been installed by following the installation instructions exactly as written, the following simple command is all you should need to start the postmaster:

% postmaster
    

The postmaster occasionally prints out messages which are often helpful during troubleshooting. If you wish to view debugging messages from the postmaster, you can start it with the -d option and redirect the output to the log file:

% postmaster -d >& pm.log &
    
If you do not wish to see these messages, you can type
% postmaster -S
    
and the postmaster will be "S"ilent. Notice that there is no ampersand ("&") at the end of the last example so postmaster will be running in the foreground.