PostgreSQL 7.2.1 / SUSE Linux 8.0
According to the output of "pg_ctl --help", the -w option (lowercase)
should force the frontend to wait until the postmaster's startup completes.
Instead it prompts for a password, as with the (-W) option (uppercase).
Ommiting the option, the frontend still blocks until the end of startup.
The behavior described is trivial and I won't bother you with unnecessary d=
etails.
For reproduction, invoke
pg_ctl start -w -l somelog -o "-i" -D somecluster
and you'll be prompted for a password.
This was correctly implemented in version 7.1.3 and may require a
change in the invocing scripts when upgrading to version 7.2.1.