Re: pg_ctlcluster not logging error (memory problem likely)

> Tom Lane wrote:
> > Tony Webb <amw(at)sanger(dot)ac(dot)uk>
> writes:
> >   
> >> I'm trying to find out why my cluster won't start.
> It looks like I'm pushing up max_connections too high
> although I think my memory and semaphore settings are OK.
> Thing is, when the cluster fails to start I can't see any
> errors in pg_log or in /var/log/messages.
> >>     
> >
> >   
> >> When the cluster is up and running it seems to
> write normally to these locations.
> >>     
> >
> >   
> >> Could pg_ctlcluster be writing somewhere else?
> >>     
> >
> > I'm not familar with pg_ctlcluster, but it seems
> possible that the
> > Debian setup is such that messages issued early in
> startup go somewhere
> > else than where messages go once the postmaster is
> fully up and running.
> > In particular, until the postmaster has absorbed the
> logging settings
> > in postgresql.conf, it's *always* going to write to
> its stderr.  I've
> > seen startup scripts that send postmaster stderr to
> /dev/null :-(
> > because they suppose that pointing log_destination to
> syslog or some
> > such means that everything of interest will go there.
> >
> > Advice is to look into the startup script, see where
> it sends
> > postmaster's stderr, and fix that if it's not
> someplace you can read.
> >
> >        
>     regards, tom lane
> >   
> Thanks Tom.
>
> Good advice - I'll check out the pg_ctlcluster script.
>
> I've not looked yet. I'm hoping it's a shell script, not
> perl :-).
>
> Cheers
>
> Pif
>

It is a perl script :-). The purpose of which is to make it easier to start and stop several postgres clusters which might not even be the same version.

It usually writes to /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-X.X-main.log. But you can just try starting the postmaster from the command line with /etc/init.d/postgresql-X.X star, that way if there were any errors you will see them printed on the terminal.

Regards

Val