PostgreSQL fails on boot, but works fine after logging in...?

[Øyvind Stegard]

On Wednesday 30 November 2005 13:23, Mike Leahy wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I'm not sure if my problem is due to updates, but this problem does
> coincide with the 2.6.14-1.1644_FC4 kernel update.  On reboot, I noticed
> that my PostgreSQL database service fails.  However, after I login to
> the Gnome desktop, I can execute /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start in a
> conosle, and it works fine.  What could cause this anomaly?
I have a rather slow server box on which the postgresql init script always 
claimed that startup failed. However, postgresql was running quite happily 
with no apparent probs. I tracked it down to a timeout in the init script:
/etc/init.d/postgresql, line 191-192:
$SU -l postgres -c "$PGENGINE/postmaster -p '$PGPORT' -D '.blahblah......& ...
sleep 2

The timeout was simply too short for postmaster to init itself on the old box 
(350MHz PII), and the wrapper script thought the whole thing had failed. I 
increased it to 6 seconds, and while the service takes a little longer to 
start (duh), it no longer displays an ugly red [FAILED] message.

As a side note, I had to do an SElinux relabeling to get postgresql to work 
initially..  Why, I don't know (the system has never run with selinux turned 
off). Relabeling seems to be the cure way too often, when strange problems 
occur that seem inexplicable (before you check /var/log/audit.log).

Øyvind
-- 
< Øyvind Stegard < oyvinst at ifi uio no >
 < http://www.oyvind.nu/
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