> > service postgresql restart
>
> And what does that do? My bet is that when you dig into it, you'll
> find it's not supplying the environment you expect to the postmaster.
ok, problem solved.
the postgres init script does:
su -l -s /bin/sh postgres blah blah
executing bash as sh causes it to not read .bash_profile. it reads .profile
instead, which after a stock postgres install doesnt exist, and so the
environment never gets setup.
i did this:
ln -s .bash_profile .profile
and it did the trick. maybe in future installs that should be done
automatically, or the init script modified to not specify a shell?
glen