Re: Purpose of pgsql/data/global directory? - permissions error

DavidF@nhb.org writes:
> I know this is not a pgadmin forum, but I get an error when trying to create
> a connection to my server using pgadminIII, "could not open file
> /usr/local/pgsql/data/global/1262. Permission denied".

global/1262 is the "pg_database" table.  This would be just about the
first table opened during backend startup.  The failure suggests that
either the permissions on that file (or one of the directories leading
to it) are messed up, or that the postmaster was started using the
wrong userid (ie, not the userid that owns the data files).

> I can connect fine using psql.

Oh?

AFAICS it's impossible for Postgres to fail that way for some
connections and not others.  My guess is that pgadmin is actually
connecting to a different postmaster than your psql attempts are
connecting to, and that there's something hosed about the postmaster
that pgadmin is connecting to.  It's hard to say more without more
data, but you could try "ps auxww | grep postmaster" and see what
turns up.

            regards, tom lane