Re: postgres installed via rpms -can't run postmaster or postgres

On Saturday 18 October 2003 04:39 am, Eric M. Wulff wrote:
> Hi, I am relatively new to Linux and just installed postgres via rpms.
> I think.  However, I can't for the life of me figure out how to start up
> postmaster or psql.

Well, Eric, you got some bad advice already.  I hope you didn't do most of it,
since the RPM installation does most of the hard things for you.  I know this
because I built the RPMs.  But I digress.

The RPM's are intended to make things simpler.  First, though, you need to get
a newer version than 7.3-2.  You really want to download the 7.3.4 RPMs,
since 7.3.4 has substantial bugfixes.

To get a running postgresql system with the RPMs, after installing the RPMs
(assuming you have postgresql-server installed), while you are still root (do
not su to postgres for this step, as the script you are about to run does
that for you), run '/sbin/service postgresql start'.  The 'service' command
(located in /sbin) on Red Hat Linux is the control program to start, stop,
and otherwise signal system processes.  It invokes the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql script packaged with the postgresql-server RPM.

The script automatically performs the proper initdb functions and starts the
postmaster as user postgres (the user and group named postgres were created
during the installation of the postgresql-server RPM by the RPM's post
installation script).  Once the postmaster is running (use the command 'ps
ax|grep postmaster' to see if the postmaster is running), you can su to the
postgres user (from root only, since you can't directly log in as that user,
unless you set its password) and run the commands you need to run.

> Oh, and another thing I'm confused about is...  I tried to install these
> in /usr/local/bin, that's where the rpms are, but they wound up in
> /usr/lib.  Any idea why that might be?  I rpm'd from /usr/local/bin

The directory in which you execute the rpm command has nothing to do with
where the rpm is installed.  The locations for each of the files in the RPM
itself is set by the packager (in this case, me), and isn't selectable by the
installer, unless the packager has made the package relocatable (which the
postgresql RPMs aren't).

I am, however, somewhat dismayed by the amount of misinformation you already
have received.  My apologies for not replying sooner.

So, in summary, to get a running PostgreSQL installation with the RPM's
(assuming PostgreSQL is not already installed):
rpm -i postgresql*7.3.4*.rpm
/sbin/service postgresql start
su - postgres
createdb .......
createuser ......
psql .....
......

Hey, and I'm glad to see that you actually read the README.rpm-dist... :-)

--
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu