John DeSoi <desoi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >This has got to be the longest thread ever to get PostgreSQL running on the Mac -- but I'm glad you have not given up :). Hi John, Partly it's because I don't have much time to spend investigating this, partly it's a very positive reflection of the great willingness of so many people on this forum--such as yourself--to help novices like me. Many thanks, all. > acorn$ sudo su postgres -c 'pg_ctl start -l logfile -D > /Library/PostgreSQL8/data' > Password: > sh: line 1: logfile: Permission denied > server starting >Since you did not specify the full path for the log file, I assume it is created in the current directory. Check your permissions there. I tried this: sudo su postgres -c 'pg_ctl start -l /Library/PostgreSQL8/logfile -D /Library/PostgreSQL8/data' and terminal said server starting, & no complaints. I then viewed the logfile (which was created where specified), and it showed: postgres cannot access the server configuration file "/Library/PostgreSQL8/data/postgresql.conf": No such file or directory So I think it's confirming the problem lies with initdb. >Change to the data directory and see what is there. If you don't see lots of folders along with pg_hba.conf and postgresql.conf, then initdb did not work. /data is empty. >At the risk of sending you down another path when you are close, you might want to look at this distribution and instructions: >http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/postgresql/ That url says: Versions 8.1.3 and up have been tested and will work on Mac OS X version 10.4/Tiger only. The software is built as Universal Binary and will run natively on PPC and Intel Macs. NOTE: On Mac OS X 10.3 (and possibly later), it seems you have to adjust some system configuration parameters first. The advice there (about putting values in an /etc/rc file) seems to contradict, or possibly be superceded by, the info in the pg docs: <PostgreSQL8/doc/postgresql/html/kernel-resources.html#SYSVIPC> , which states: ---- MacOS X In OS X 10.2 and earlier, edit the file /System/Library/StartupItems/SystemTuning/SystemTuning and change the values in the following commands: sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmin sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmni sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmseg sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall In OS X 10.3 and later, these commands have been moved to /etc/rc and must be edited there. Note that /etc/rc is usually overwritten by OS X updates (such as 10.3.6 to 10.3.7) so you should expect to have to redo your editing after each update. In OS X 10.3.9 and later, instead of editing /etc/rc you may create a file named /etc/sysctl.conf, containing variable assignments such as kern.sysv.shmmax=4194304 kern.sysv.shmmin=1 kern.sysv.shmmni=32 kern.sysv.shmseg=8 kern.sysv.shmall=1024 This method is better than editing /etc/rc because your changes will be preserved across system updates. Note that all five shared-memory parameters must be set in /etc/sysctl.conf, else the values will be ignored. Beware that recent releases of OS X ignore attempts to set SHMMAX to a value that isn't an exact multiple of 4096. SHMALL is measured in 4 kB pages on this platform. In all OS X versions, you'll need to reboot to make changes in the shared memory parameters take effect. ---- I'm running 10.3.9, so last week I created the /etc/sysctl.conf file in vi, using the values shown above, rebooted, but still got/get the same problems with initdb. I've just rebooted, & ran the following (a list member advised me off-list to try creating the cluster in a "fresh" dir.): acorn$ sudo mkdir /data Password: acorn$ cd / acorn$ sudo chown postgres:postgres /data acorn$ sudo su postgres -c 'initdb -D /data' The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres". This user must also own the server process. The database cluster will be initialized with locale C. fixing permissions on existing directory /data ... ok creating subdirectories ... ok selecting default max_connections ... 10 selecting default shared_buffers/max_fsm_pages ... 400kB/20000 creating configuration files ... ok creating template1 database in /data/base/1 ... FATAL: could not create shared memory segment: Cannot allocate memory DETAIL: Failed system call was shmget(key=2, size=1646592, 03600). HINT: This error usually means that PostgreSQL's request for a shared memory segment exceeded available memory or swap space. To reduce the request size (currently 1646592 bytes), reduce PostgreSQL's shared_buffers parameter (currently 50) and/or its max_connections parameter (currently 10). The PostgreSQL documentation contains more information about shared memory configuration. child process exited with exit code 1 initdb: removing contents of data directory "/data" Should I uninstall pg 8.2.4 & try with an earlier version, even though the docs. seem to imply 8.2.4 should work with 10.3.9? Cheers! Joe
