Chris Travers <chris(at)verkiel(dot)metatrontech(dot)com> writes:
> Things to check when PostgreSQL doesn't seem to start:
> ...
> In your case, if PostgreSQL is hanging, I would suspect that the problem
> is likely to be with something else. Hopefully there would be info in
> the serverlog that would help.
What I'm guessing is that the server started just fine, but the Debian
initscript is trying to connect to it (to verify that it started) and
that's failing because of the change in authentication options. You
might have to remove the -w option from pg_ctl, or some such, in the
script ... or else fix things so that root is allowed to connect ...
regards, tom lane