psql tends to do things like this:
rhaas=# select * from pg_stat_activity;
FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command
server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while
processingthe request.
Basically everything psql has to say about this is a lie:
1. It says the server closed the connection unexpectedly, but it just
finished processing a FATAL message from the server. So how
unexpected is it that the connection would thereafter be closed?
2. It says the server probably terminated abnormally, but PostgreSQL
is rarely so unreliable as to just give up the ghost and die. The
ErrorResponse it just processed has an errcode of
ERRCODE_ADMIN_SHUTDOWN, so probably what happened is somebody either
shut down the server or killed the session.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company