Re: Postgresql fails to start? - Mailing list pgsql-general

> I've seen reports of that before, eg,
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=152931
> but it's far from clear why some people see this and some don't.

I feel such a goof ball. I searched bugzilla for an hour yesterday but
for some reason I did not find that bug. But that solved my problem. I
just set sleep 3 and now it works.

I still get the /usr/bin/chcon message but only when I run the command
by hand, even after upgrading coreutils:

# PGLOG=/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
# touch "$PGLOG"
# ls -Z $PGLOG
-rw-r--r--  root     root
/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
# chown postgres:postgres "$PGLOG"
# chmod go-rwx "$PGLOG"
# /usr/bin/chcon -u system_u -r object_r -t postgresql_log_t "$PGLOG"
/usr/bin/chcon: can't apply partial context to unlabeled file
/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
# ls -Z $PGLOG
-rw-------  postgres postgres
/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
# uname -r
2.6.11-1.1286_FC4
# rpm -qf /usr/bin/chcon
coreutils-5.2.1-48

I will try upgrading the kernel to see if that will resolve that issue.

> That is going to give you some problems if you have SELinux in
> enforcement mode, because the standard policy will disallow the
> postgres
> daemon from writing anywhere under /home.

I really should take the time and learn SELinux but I'm crunched right
now and will disable it for now.

Thank you soooooo much for the all the help.

Dianne

On Jun 7, 2005, at 10:58 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

> Dianne Yumul <dianne@wellsgaming.com> writes:
>> # rm -f pgstartup.log
>> # /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start
>> /usr/bin/chcon: can't apply partial context to unlabeled file
>> /home/postgres/pgstartup.log
>> Starting postgresql service:                               [FAILED]
>> # ps aux | grep postmaster
>> postgres 10470 34.1  0.6 112404  5248 pts/0    S    09:24   0:02
>> /usr/bin/postmaster -p 5432 -D /home/postgres/data
>> root     10480  0.0  0.0   3756   668 pts/0    R+   09:24   0:00 grep
>> postmaster
>
> Odd.  I don't see any reason that you'd not get the OK message, given
> that the postmaster started.  I've seen reports of that before, eg,
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=152931
> but it's far from clear why some people see this and some don't.
> In any case I suspect that the FAILED message is unrelated to the chcon
> problem.
>
>> ls -Z /home/postgres/pgstartup.log
>> Gives:
>> Sorry, this option can only be used on a SELinux kernel.
>
>> But after setting selinux to permissive mode, ls -Z
>> /home/postgres/pgstartup.log gives:
>
>> -rw-------  postgres postgres system_u:object_r:postgresql_log_t
>> /home/postgres/pgstartup.log
>
> There is something very flaky about either your kernel or your selinux
> utilities.  Are you up-to-date on kernel version?  (Let's see ... my
> FC3 machine is at 2.6.11-1.14_FC3, and I think I may be behind ...)
>
> I tried to reproduce the problem by doing what the initscript does,
> without any success:
>
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo mkdir /home/postgres
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo chown postgres:postgres /home/postgres
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ PGLOG=/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo touch "$PGLOG"
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo ls -Z $PGLOG
> -rw-r--r--  root     root     root:object_r:user_home_t
> /home/postgres/pgstartup.log
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo chown postgres:postgres "$PGLOG"
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo chmod go-rwx "$PGLOG"
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo /usr/bin/chcon -u system_u -r object_r -t
> postgresql_log_t "$PGLOG"
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ sudo ls -Z $PGLOG
> -rw-------  postgres postgres system_u:object_r:postgresql_log_t
> /home/postgres/pgstartup.log
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ uname -r
> 2.6.11-1.14_FC3
> [tgl@rh1 ~]$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/chcon
> coreutils-5.2.1-31
>
> so I suspect that what you are running into is either a kernel bug or a
> chcon bug; it'd be worth making sure both kernel and coreutils are up
> to
> date.  If you try the sequence by hand, what do you get?
>
>>> Oh, and is the message really complaining
>>> about /home/postgres/pgstartup.log?  AFAICS the initscript should be
>>> messing with /var/lib/pgsql/pgstartup.log.
>
>> Sorry, I forgot to mention that I changed some of the defaults via
>> /etc/sysconfig/pgsql/postgresql file, which looks like this:
>> PGDATA=/home/postgres/data
>> PGLOG=/home/postgres/pgstartup.log
>
> That is going to give you some problems if you have SELinux in
> enforcement mode, because the standard policy will disallow the
> postgres
> daemon from writing anywhere under /home.  You can fix this by fooling
> around with the policy and/or manually relabeling the database
> directory
> and files, but the path of least resistance is probably to leave the
> database directory in the normal place.
>
>             regards, tom lane
>
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