Re: Cannot restart postgres

[Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>]

elein <elein(at)varlena(dot)com> writes:
> 7.x installation.  (Yeah, yeah, upgrade.)
> I have a disk which has only the database on it.
> It has become full and postgres won't start.

> Is there an option (besides restore from backup) 
> other than trying to move the data dir to a bigger
> disk?  

I'd try to remove some old xlog segments manually, rather than relying
on pg_resetxlog's scorched-earth approach.  Assuming your PG is new
enough to have the pg_controldata program, run that and look at the last
checkpoint REDO location.  Anywhere that's not between there and WAL tip
is removable.  (If you're not sure about WAL tip, the WAL file with the
newest mtime is probably it.)

If you screw up, you can always fall back to pg_resetxlog, but that
shouldn't be your first resort because of the risk of having
inconsistent data afterwards.

			regards, tom lane