Trouble starting Postgresql after an upgrade

I’m having a little trouble and I hope someone can point me towards a fix. ☺

We’ve been using Pg 9.3.4 and just upgraded to 9.5.1. I’ve installed it on 1 server and it works. ☺ However, when I
copiedthose binaries over to a 2nd server, I find that they won’t start normally. I can do “/etc/init.d/postgresql-9.5
start”from anywhere and it fails to start. Looking in the script, I believe the important line (expanded via bash -x)
is:

+ echo -n 'Starting postgresql-9.5 service: '
Starting postgresql-9.5 service: + runuser -l postgres -c '/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/postmaster -p '\''5432'\'' -D
'\''/nms-db/9.5/data'\'' &'
 

In the pgstartup.log, I see:

LOG:  skipping missing configuration file "/home/postgres/postgresql.auto.conf"
2016-07-12 22:16:41 GMT [6066]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= FATAL:  "/home/postgres" is not a valid data directory
2016-07-12 22:16:41 GMT [6066]: [3-1] user=,db=,app= DETAIL:  File "/home/postgres/PG_VERSION" is missing.

Duh, there is no postgresql.auto.conf in the ~postgres, it's in the data dir "/nms-db/9.5/data", as is "PG_VERSION". I
alsodon’t see anything in the main log (in /logs/pg_log/post*”) that gives me any more info.
 

Since it all works on the original server, I must have done something wrong on this install, but I can’t figure out
what.Can someone see what I did wrong from the above or a pointer to a place to look with better error messages would
alsobe helpful.
 

To make the problem more interesting, I can bring the DB engine up if I use pg_ctl … but only if I’m in the data dir.

[root@nms59c ~]# pwd
/root
[root@nms59c ~]# sudo -u postgres "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/pg_ctl" -w -D "/nms-db/9.5/data" -o ""  start
could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
waiting for server to start....LOG:  skipping missing configuration file "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/postgresql.auto.conf"
2016-07-12 22:41:30 GMT [5567]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= FATAL:  data directory "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin" has wrong ownership
2016-07-12 22:41:30 GMT [5567]: [3-1] user=,db=,app= HINT:  The server must be started by the user that owns the data
directory.
stopped waiting
pg_ctl: could not start server
Examine the log output.
[root@nms59c ~]#
[root@nms59c ~]#
[root@nms59c ~]# cd $PGDATA
[root@nms59c data]# pwd
/nms-db/9.5/data
[root@nms59c data]# sudo -u postgres "/opt/pgsql-9.5/bin/pg_ctl" -w -D "/nms-db/9.5/data" -o ""  start
waiting for server to start....2016-07-12 22:41:38 GMT [5571]: [1-1] user=,db=,app= LOG:  redirecting log output to
loggingcollector process
 
2016-07-12 22:41:38 GMT [5571]: [2-1] user=,db=,app= HINT:  Future log output will appear in directory "/logs/pg_log".
done
server started
[root@nms59c data]#

That almost makes sense to me as it probably wants to write some file so perms matter, but yet I don’t understand why
itwouldn’t change to the data dir itself if that’s really required.
 

Given the above, I’m tempted to change /etc/init.d/postgresql-9.5 so that it does “cd $PGDATA” then replace the
“runuser-l postgres -c…” line to be what I have that works with pg_ctl, but I’m concerned that the error is an
indicationthat I’ve screwed up something important that will bite me later if I don’t figure it out now. This is on a
testsystem, so no real data is endangered; but I really need to figure this out as we automate the upgrade so it can go
toreal data servers.
 

Kevin

This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it, may contain confidential
information.If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient,
youare hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, review, copy or use of any of the information contained in or
attachedto this message is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately
notifyus by reply e-mail, and destroy the original transmission and its attachments without reading them or saving them
todisk. Thank you.