Re: RE: Intermittent Startup Failures

Debra LaVille <debra(dot)laville(at)digeo(dot)com> writes:
> I'm using the script file included with the postgresql distribution:

Hmm, is this from an RPM? It's certainly not part of what *I* consider
the Postgres distribution ...

> #all systems go -- remove any stale lock files
> rm -f /tmp/.s.PGSQL.* > /dev/null
> echo -n "$PSQL_START"
> su -l postgres -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/pg_ctl -D $PGDATA -p
> /usr/bin/postmaster start > /dev/null 2>&1" < /dev/null
> sleep 1
> pid=`pidof -s postmaster`
> if [ $pid ]
> then
> echo " [ OK ]"
> touch /var/lock/subsys/postgresql
> echo $pid > /var/run/postmaster.pid
> echo
> else
> echo " [ FAILED ]"
> echo
> fi

Since this thing is sending the postmaster's stderr output to /dev/null,
it's impossible to tell what's going wrong. Change the su line to be
something like

su -l postgres -s /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/pg_ctl -D $PGDATA -p /usr/bin/postmaster start >> /some/handy/logfile 2>&1" < /dev/null

and then let us know what you see in /some/handy/logfile after you get a
failure.

regards, tom lane