Re: Strange issue with initdb on 8.0 and Solaris automounts

Coincidentally I JUST NOW built 8.0 on Solaris 9, and ran into the same
problem. As they say, "this used to work".....

We build databases as part of the build of our product, and I'm looking
into what we need to do to upgrade from 7.4.5, and this was the first
thing I ran into. I hadn't gotten as far as truss yet, so thanks Kenneth
for that extra info.

Did initdb previously just assume the -D path existed, and now it is
trying to create the whole path, if necessary?

- DAP

>-----Original Message-----
>From: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org
>[mailto:pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Kenneth Lareau
>Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 5:23 PM
>To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
>Subject: [HACKERS] Strange issue with initdb on 8.0 and
>Solaris automounts
>
>Folks,
>
>I ran into an interesting issue when installing PostgreSQL 8.0
>that I'm not sure how to resolve correctly.  My system is a
>Sun machine (Blade
>1000) running Solaris 9, with relatively recent patches. After
>install- ing 8.0, I went to run the 'initdb' command and was
>greeted with the
>following:
>
>[delirium:postgres] ~
>(11) initdb -D /software/postgresql-8.0.0/data The files
>belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".
>This user must also own the server process.
>
>The database cluster will be initialized with locale C.
>
>creating directory /software/postgresql-8.0.0/data ... initdb:
>could not create directory "/software/postgresql-8.0.0":
>Operation not applicable
>
>
>The error message was a bit confusing, so I decided to run a
>truss on the process to see what might be happening, and this
>is what I came
>across:
>
>[...]
>8802/1:         write(1, " c r e a t i n g   d i r".., 62)      = 62
>8802/1:         umask(0)                                        = 077
>8802/1:         umask(077)                                      = 0
>8802/1:         mkdir("/software", 0777)
> Err#17 EEXIST
>8802/1:         stat64("/software", 0xFFBFC858)                 = 0
>8802/1:         mkdir("/software/postgresql-8.0.0", 0777)
> Err#89 ENOSYS
>[...]
>
>
>The last error in that section, ENOSYS, is very strange, as
>the Solaris manpage for 'mkdir' does not mention it as a
>possible error.  One thing to note in this, however, is that
>'/software/postgresql-8.0.0' is not a regular directory, but
>an automount point (which in this case is just a local
>loopback mount).  So the indication is that Solaris seems to
>have a bug not in mkdir, but deeper in their VFS code that's
>causing this seemingly strange issue.
>
>Two workarounds for this problem have been found: running
>'initdb' with a directory that's *not* an automount point and
>then moving the 'data'
>directory to its final destination worked fine, along with a
>suggestion from Andrew Dunstan (on the #postgresql IRC
>channel) with using a rela- tive path for the data directory.
>Both were successful in avoiding the issue, but I decided to
>mention this here in case someone felt it might be worth
>looking into to see if the Sun problem can be avoided; I am
>going to notify Sun of their bug, just don't know how long it
>will take them to actually resolve it (if they ever do).
>
>While I can fully understand that a code change here may not
>be desire- able, might some notes in the documentation be
>useful for those who might stumble across the problem as well?
> Just a suggestion...
>
>I hope I gave sufficient information on the problem, though
>I'm always willing to give any clarification needed.  Thank
>you for your time.
>
>
>Ken Lareau
>elessar@numenor.org
>
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