Re: [GENERAL] Postgres shutting down by itself...why?

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: Fri Nov 30 2007 - 23:21:35 EST

"Dave Horn" <dave@hitforthecycle.com> writes:
> I've recently installed Postgres 8.2.x on a RedHat Linux system. Everything
> seems fine and normal. I can start and stop the server without errors.
> When the server is running, everything appears normal. The problem is that
> about every 2 to 3 hours I find the server is just not running anymore.
> I've turned on logging at the info level and up and am not getting any
> messages that is giving me any clue why the server is shutting down.

I've never seen or heard of a case of PG shutting down "by itself". You should be looking for outside causes. What else is running on that system?

If there is absolutely nothing in the server log file mentioning a shutdown, I would tend to think that something has kill -9'd the postmaster process. This has been known to happen on short-of-memory Linux systems, if you don't disable memory overcommit (google "OOM kill" for details).

Whether that's it or not, the kernel syslog file would be a good first stop to check for clues.

Oh, another line of thought: maybe you are launching the postmaster under restrictive ulimit settings that kill it after not very much runtime?

                        regards, tom lane

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TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster Received on Fri Nov 30 23:23:06 2007