I see the mention of -w in the main FAQ.
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> > There's probably little reason to start a backend standalone. If you want
> > to do stock-of-the-trade debugging you simply start a postmaster, then
> > psql (or whatever floats your boat), and attach gdb to the resulting
> > backend process.
>
> Right, that's what I always do (unless I have to debug a crash at initdb
> time :-(). A tip here is that you can even debug backend-startup-time
> problems this way, and no you don't have to be superhumanly quick on the
> trigger: you set PGOPTIONS="-W n" in the environment of psql. This
> will cause an n-second sleep() call very early in the backend startup
> process. I find 30 seconds plenty of time to run ps, start gdb, and
> attach. You can also throw in things like "-d2" to crank up the
> postmaster log level for just the backend under test.
>
> I thought this lore was in the developer's FAQ already, but I don't
> see it there at the moment. Bruce, is it lurking someplace else?
>
> regards, tom lane
>
-- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610)
853-3000+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill,
Pennsylvania19026
