Re: BUG #5736: 9.0.1 segmentation fault (sig11) during long-lived update

Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> Also, make sure the ulimit command is effective in the shell that will
> actually launch the postmaster. This can be tricky if your PG launch
> script uses "su". If you're using the RH or PGDG RPMs' initscript,
> I'd suggest putting the ulimit command in ~postgres/.bash_profile.

Under debian or ubuntu you can add the -c switch to pg_ctl options so
that IIRC it will change the ulimit settings for you. An example on a
8.4 install:

$ cat /etc/postgresql/8.4/main/pg_ctl.conf
# Automatic pg_ctl configuration
# This configuration file contains cluster specific options to be passed to
# pg_ctl(1).

pg_ctl_options = ''

Also see the /etc/postgresql/X.Y/cluster/environment file. For archives
sake and people following without a debian based installation handy:

$ cat /etc/postgresql/8.4/main/environment
# environment variables for postmaster process
# This file has the same syntax as postgresql.conf:
# VARIABLE = simple_value
# VARIABLE2 = 'any value!'
# I. e. you need to enclose any value which does not only consist of letters,
# numbers, and '-', '_', '.' in single quotes. Shell commands are not
# evaluated.

Regards,
--
Dimitri Fontaine
http://2ndQuadrant.fr PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support