Re: Trouble starting Postgresql after an upgrade

On 07/14/2016 06:58 AM, Kevin Brannen wrote:
> I’m having a little trouble and I hope someone can point me towards a fix. ☺
>
> We’ve been using Pg 9.3.4 and just upgraded to 9.5.1. I’ve installed it on 1 server and it works. ☺ However, when I copied those binaries over to a 2nd server, I find that they won’t start normally. I can do “/etc/init.d/postgresql-9.5 start” from anywhere and it fails to start. Looking in the script, I believe the important line (expanded via bash -x) is:

What OS, OS version and architecture for each machine?

How did you upgrade?

>
> + echo -n 'Starting postgresql-9.5 service: '
> Starting postgresql-9.5 service: + runuser -l postgres -c '/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/postmaster -p '\''5432'\'' -D '\''/nms-db/9.5/data'\'' &'
>
> In the pgstartup.log, I see:
>
> LOG: skipping missing configuration file "/home/postgres/postgresql.auto.conf"
> 2016-07-12 22:16:41 GMT [6066]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= FATAL: "/home/postgres" is not a valid data directory
> 2016-07-12 22:16:41 GMT [6066]: [3-1] user=,db=,app= DETAIL: File "/home/postgres/PG_VERSION" is missing.
>
> Duh, there is no postgresql.auto.conf in the ~postgres, it's in the data dir "/nms-db/9.5/data", as is "PG_VERSION". I also don’t see anything in the main log (in /logs/pg_log/post*”) that gives me any more info.
>
> Since it all works on the original server, I must have done something wrong on this install, but I can’t figure out what. Can someone see what I did wrong from the above or a pointer to a place to look with better error messages would also be helpful.
>
> To make the problem more interesting, I can bring the DB engine up if I use pg_ctl … but only if I’m in the data dir.
>
> [root(at)nms59c ~]# pwd
> /root
> [root(at)nms59c ~]# sudo -u postgres "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/pg_ctl" -w -D "/nms-db/9.5/data" -o "" start
> could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
> waiting for server to start....LOG: skipping missing configuration file "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/postgresql.auto.conf"
> 2016-07-12 22:41:30 GMT [5567]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= FATAL: data directory "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin" has wrong ownership
> 2016-07-12 22:41:30 GMT [5567]: [3-1] user=,db=,app= HINT: The server must be started by the user that owns the data directory.
> stopped waiting
> pg_ctl: could not start server
> Examine the log output.
> [root(at)nms59c ~]#
> [root(at)nms59c ~]#
> [root(at)nms59c ~]# cd $PGDATA
> [root(at)nms59c data]# pwd
> /nms-db/9.5/data
> [root(at)nms59c data]# sudo -u postgres "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/pg_ctl" -w -D "/nms-db/9.5/data" -o "" start
> waiting for server to start....2016-07-12 22:41:38 GMT [5571]: [1-1] user=,db=,app= LOG: redirecting log output to logging collector process
> 2016-07-12 22:41:38 GMT [5571]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= HINT: Future log output will appear in directory "/logs/pg_log".
> done
> server started
> [root(at)nms59c data]#
>
> That almost makes sense to me as it probably wants to write some file so perms matter, but yet I don’t understand why it wouldn’t change to the data dir itself if that’s really required.

I would say it is the difference between init/service scripts between
machines. Can't be more specific until the questions above are answered.

>
> Given the above, I’m tempted to change /etc/init.d/postgresql-9.5 so that it does “cd $PGDATA” then replace the “runuser -l postgres -c…” line to be what I have that works with pg_ctl, but I’m concerned that the error is an indication that I’ve screwed up something important that will bite me later if I don’t figure it out now. This is on a test system, so no real data is endangered; but I really need to figure this out as we automate the upgrade so it can go to real data servers.
>
> Kevin
>
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>
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com