postgresql fails to start after symlinking pgdata dir

Gene <genekhart@gmail.com> writes:

In the past I've always done the following with success (this is under
fedora core 6 x86_64):

mv /var/lib/pgsql/data /data/pg/
ln -s /data/pg/data /var/lib/pgsql/data
/etc/init.d/postgresql start

I just installed 8.2.2 on a new FC6 machine and when I do that it fails to
start. The logs reveal nothing.

Smells like a SELinux problem --- you probably need to set the
appropriate security context on /data/pg. It might even take an update
to the policy ... not sure if the /var/lib/pgsql path is wired into the
policy or if it's just driven off file context markers. Look for avc
denied messages in the kernel log to get a hint.

Or you could just do "setenforce 0" but I don't recommend that ...

regards, tom lane

Tom,

You were right i just considered that a few minutes ago before getting your
response.
I set SELINUX=disabled in /etc/sysconfig/selinux and it started up ok.

a note in this file: http://pgfoundry.org/docman/?group_id=1000048 would be
handy for those who forget easily and aren't sysadmins :)

thanks!

On 2/5/07, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Gene < genekhart@gmail.com> writes:

In the past I've always done the following with success (this is under
fedora core 6 x86_64):

mv /var/lib/pgsql/data /data/pg/
ln -s /data/pg/data /var/lib/pgsql/data
/etc/init.d/postgresql start

I just installed 8.2.2 on a new FC6 machine and when I do that it fails

to

start. The logs reveal nothing.

Smells like a SELinux problem --- you probably need to set the
appropriate security context on /data/pg. It might even take an update
to the policy ... not sure if the /var/lib/pgsql path is wired into the
policy or if it's just driven off file context markers. Look for avc
denied messages in the kernel log to get a hint.

Or you could just do "setenforce 0" but I don't recommend that ...

regards, tom lane

--
Gene Hart
cell: 443-604-2679