Re: postmaster -D PGDATA and postmaster.pid

"Medi Montaseri" <montaseri(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> However if I try to start the engine with "/etc/init.d/postgresql start " or
> service postgresql start" I see the following error message in my PGLOG (ie
> /var/log/pgsql/pgstartup.log)

> postmaster cannot access the server configuration file
> "/qmsvol/pg_8.1.9/data/postgresql.conf": Permission denied

This being CentOS (ie RHEL), you probably have got SELinux turned on
by default. The out-of-the-box SELinux policy forbids the postmaster
daemon from accessing portions of the filesystem other than
/var/lib/pgsql.

You can either disable SELinux or fix its policy to allow PG to access
the area where you want to put PGDATA. I don't really recommend the
former, at least not for a system that has any exposure at all to the
open Internet. However, I don't have a recipe for fixing the latter
in my hip pocket, either. (Really need to go study SELinux someday.)

regards, tom lane