Volker <arendt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > currently we have a server down problem. The server is a IBM xSeries > 306, 1GB RAM, HD 36GB RAID1. Operating System ist Debian Sarge 3.1. > Postgresql version is 7.4.7. > The reason for this ist not knwon. The postmaster won't come up any > more. Here is the relevant content of the postgres.log file: It looks to me like pg_control is quite out of sync with the files in pg_xlog. pg_control claims to have checkpointed as recently as 16-Aug but there is no file newer than 7-Aug in pg_xlog. The other thing that is strange is that the filename numbers in pg_xlog correspond to WAL locations much higher than what pg_control claims is the end of WAL. Is $PGDATA kept on a dismountable volume (ie, not the root disk)? If so it might be a good idea to unmount the volume and look to see if there's anything under the mount point. I recall having seen corruption that came from trying to start Postgres before the $PGDATA disk had been mounted --- the initscript happily initdb'd a new database under the mount-point directory, and then when the main disk did come up things were badly hosed because the server was working with a pg_control in memory that was completely out of sync with everything else. This looks a bit like that might have happened here. As far as running pg_resetxlog goes, there is advice about setting the parameters in recent releases' documentation; try http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/app-pgresetxlog.html for the latest. (Some of the parameters mentioned don't exist in 7.4; just ignore 'em.) I'm afraid though that you may have actual database corruption. If so pg_resetxlog won't fix it. regards, tom lane
