Re: Unhelpful initdb error message

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Thom Brown <thom(at)linux(dot)com> wrote:
> On 6 March 2012 16:04, Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> The postmaster.pid is located outside the data directory, but points back to the
>> data directory.   Not sure where Debian, though at a guess somewhere in /var.
>> Any way search for postmaster.pid.
>
> I'm not sure, because if I use a new data directory, initdb it and
> start the service, the postmaster.pid appears in it, and not as a
> symbolic link.
>
> I did a search for postmaster.pid in the whole of /var and it only
> shows up "/var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main/postmaster.pid"
>
> --
> Thom

I know that I'm late to the party, but a small suggestion: Run
"initdb" with "strace" (truss on Solaris) and examine the syscalls
made. It should show you, conclusively, what files are being
"open"ed, "unlink"ed, etc...

Example:

strace -o /tmp/x initdb -D /tmp/data-1
grep -E '^(open|unlink)' /tmp/x