Re: Creating a database

Richard Francis Duggan <dugganr@student.cs.ucc.ie> writes:
> I am trying to create a database and use the following command:
> 'createdb <database-name>'
> However I get the following error:
> ERROR:  CREATE DATABASE: could not initialize database directory
> createdb: database creation failed

Hm.  That's not an especially easy error to get ... to get that far,
you must have a running postmaster and a working template1 database.
Furthermore you don't have a permissions problem, because it already
was able to create the new subdirectory for the new database.  What's
failing is the 'cp' command to copy files into that subdirectory from
template1.  Most odd.

What platform are you on?  What's the name of the intended new database?
Also, just reaching at straws, what's the PGDATA setting you are using
(full pathname)?

            regards, tom lane