Re: Problems With New Installation

Rich Shepard wrote:
> I installed 8.3.5 on my notebook so that I can run a business
> application.
> I used the Slackware package approach and everything seems to be in place,
> but there is no /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 or associated lock file.
>
> Starting the server produces a message that the PostgreSQL daemon is
> already running. Stopping the server produces the message that there's no
> directory so it's logging in with HOME=/, and there's an invalid
> postmaster.pid.
>
> Restarting postgres does not create the /tmp socket and lock. The user
> 'postgres' exists and has the home directory of /home/postgres. My Google
> searches and reading through the Douglas^2 book gives me no clues.
>
> What do I do to properly start/stop the postmaster?
>
> Rich
>
1. Do you have to do an "initdb"? Some distros do that automatically,
and some don't. When I was running Gentoo, I had to do an extra
"configure" step after the install to get that to happen. The
"configure" is automatic on openSUSE 11.1 when you install, and I
think that's true for Debian-based distros as well. Try "man initdb".

On openSUSE, the PostgreSQL files default to "/var/lib/pgsql" and belong
to "postgres:postgres". In there, I see a "backups" directory and a
"data" directory, and the configuration files are in the "data"
directory. On my system, there's an "initlog" which has all the messages
from when "initdb" was run.

2. If "initdb" has been done, is there an "/etc/init.d/postgresql" file?
What happens if you do "/etc/init.d/postgresql restart"? That's how I
restart PostgreSQL. Also, there's undoubtedly a way you can get it to
start automatically at boot time when you enter your default run level.
I used the GUI runlevel editing tool. :)

3. If that doesn't work, try a "man pg_ctl". That's the command that is
designed to start and stop and reload. It has some environment variables
that need to be set so it knows where "initdb" put the database.

One other thing that might help (from the Douglas^2 book) would be to do
"sudo su - postgres" and see which command-line utilities actually
function. There's "pg_ctl" and the "psql" client, and some dump and
restore utilities. And there may be some settings in "postgresql.conf"
and "pg_hba.conf" you might need to set so that when the postmaster is
running, you have permissions to execute stuff.

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.