On 07/05/09 18:26, Tom Lane wrote: > Scott Mead <scott.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> How did you restart postgres? I'm guessing that you're using a >> distribution provided package. If you're using the /etc/init.d >> scripts from that package, it's likely that the startup script is >> redirecting stderr and that the system is configured to use syslog >> for the rest of the logging. > > Right. There are a number of messages that can appear at startup > before the postmaster reads and adopts the "where to log" settings in > postgresql.conf. Those early messages are going to go to > postmaster's stderr. What it sounds like is you're using a start > script that points postmaster stderr to > /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-8.3-main.log. I don't find that to be > a tremendously good idea --- in my RPMs the early-startup messages go > to a fixed file (/var/lib/pgsql/pgstartup.log) that's not dependent > on what the "where to log" configuration settings are. I looked into the startup scripts that are used here (Ubuntu 8.10): the /etc/init.d script calls a Perl script and redirects that command's stderr to stdin to capture warnings and errors: ERRMSG=$(pg_ctlcluster 8.3 main start 2>&1) The pg_ctlcluster script parses postgresql.conf and, if log_filename and log_directory aren't defined there, adds '-l /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-8.3-main.log' as an option for pg_ctl. This file is created with the appropriate permissions if necessary. The script then forks, and the child detaches itself from the terminal and redirects stdout and stderr to /dev/null: setsid; dup2(POSIX::open('/dev/null', POSIX::O_WRONLY), 1); dup2(POSIX::open('/dev/null', POSIX::O_WRONLY), 2); exec $pg_ctl @options; That doesn't look too bad to me, or at least it's how I would write a daemon script, too. If I understand you correctly, stderr should be left intact? If this is not the preferred way to handle logging with Postgres, maybe I should ask pg_ctlcluster's maintainer about it. Regards, - Conrad -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general