Re: how to stop postmaster

"Keith Worthington" <keithw@narrowpathinc.com> writes:
> Here is what I did.

> $ postmaster -D /raid02/databases/

> $ pg_ctl stop -m smart
> pg_ctl: cannot find /var/lib/pgsql/data/postmaster.pid
> Is postmaster running?

pg_ctl evidently thinks that PGDATA is /var/lib/pgsql/data, which I
suppose it got from an environment variable you have set; but you
told the postmaster to use PGDATA = /raid02/databases.  So you need
    pg_ctl stop -D /raid02/databases/ -m whatever

Or change your environment variable.

> I would also like to know how to start the postmaster properly on a permanent
> basis.  For instance at boot time.

Usually people do that with an init script.  There's a simple one in the
source distribution (look in contrib/start-scripts) but you're probably
better off using the one that comes with the RPM distribution.

            regards, tom lane