Database is shutting down

Hi everyone,
 I am hoping one of you has faced this before and can shed some light.

Setup
------
OS: FreeBSD
Remote and local connectivity problem.

Problem:
--------

[guna ~] su - postgres
su-2.05a$ pwd
/usr/local/pgsql
su-2.05a$ psql noc postgres              -- ???
psql: FATAL 1:  The database system is shutting down

The same problem occurs if I try connecting from a remote client. Here is my
process list. As you can see, one other host (10.4.1.134) is happily
connected (remote).

su-2.05a$ ps -ax | grep post
67343  ??  I      0:00.03 postmaster: postgres template1 10.4.1.134 idle
(postgres)
67377  ??  I      0:00.19 postmaster: postgres noc 10.4.1.134 idle
(postgres)
67379  ??  I      0:00.04 postmaster: postgres test 10.4.1.134 idle
(postgres)
67381  ??  I      0:02.85 postmaster: postgres noc 10.4.1.134 idle
(postgres)
50215  p3- I      0:00.98 /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postmaster -i (postgres)
50216  p3- I      0:00.03 postmaster: stats buffer process    (postgres)
50217  p3- I      0:00.17 postmaster: stats collector process    (postgres)

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.
cheers,
-ansh