Re: staring pgsql on fedora 8

Wow! thanks for being super helpful, I will try it all out. Though I
distinctly remember turning off SElinux because it was giving me such a
headache even in permissive mode.

Thanks again for the tips.
Regards,
-A

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> newbiegalore <banerjee(dot)anirban(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > hey! thanks for the reply :-). I looked into the pgstartup.log file
> > and everything seems to have worked perfectly with the msg at the end
> > saying "Success: you can now start...."
>
> > but when I try to start it as a normal user using su normaluser my
> > computer just hangs.. arrrrgh!!!!
>
> Try to start *what* as a normal user?
>
> If you mean the Postgres postmaster, you're not supposed to start it as
> a normal user; it has to run as the user "postgres" because of the
> permissions on the database files. The usual way to start or stop
> the postmaster in a standard RPM installation is "sudo /sbin/service
> postgresql start" (vice "stop"). Once you've got that working you can
> make the service start automatically at system boot (see chkconfig).
>
> > I found the exact
> > problem described at
> http://www.computing.net/linux/wwwboard/forum/29077.html
> > and at http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=12082
> > but the solution is vague to me and using sudo doesn't help either.
>
> If that's your problem then it's a generic issue having nothing much to
> do with Postgres. What it sounds like to me is a SELinux problem ...
> if things magically start working after "sudo /usr/sbin/setenforce 0"
> then that guess is confirmed. I wouldn't recommend that as a permanent
> solution though. My best guess as to the cause is that you've got some
> files that are labeled with the wrong SELinux context. The solution
> Red Hat recommends is
>
> touch /.autorelabel
> reboot
>
> The presence of /.autorelabel causes the boot process to reset every
> installed file's security label according to what the RPM database says
> it should be (sort of like a fsck for permissions, and yeah it'll take a
> little while).
>
> regards, tom lane
>

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