Russell Davie <rjrd@exemail.com.au> writes:
> postgres@XXXXX:~$ /etc/init.d/postgresql-7.4 start
> chmod: changing permissions of `/var/run/postgresql': Operation not permitted
> * Starting PostgreSQL 7.4 database server:main
> Error: Could not change user id [fail]
init scripts generally expect to be launched as root. Perhaps
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-7.4 start
would work better. Actually, I believe that on modern systems
you're not really supposed to invoke an init script directly like
that at all, but instead through the "service" program; that is,
you should really be typing something like
sudo /sbin/service postgresql-7.4 start
regards, tom lane