Thank you for comments, did I mention the system is a beast?
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax
68719476736
It can not be the resource limit, it has to be something else. I assume this version of postgres is incompatible with RedHat ES 5. Changing to a newer version of postgres is not an option for now. It would take too much time to rewrite the application to work with the changes introduced in the lastest realeses. I have tried PG 7.3.17 version an it works fine, I just can not use it.
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Darek Czarkowski