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	id AA09083; Thu, 11 Jul 91 03:18:32 -0700
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 91 03:18:32 -0700
Message-Id: <9107111018.AA09083@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
From: kemnitz@hermes.Berkeley.EDU (Greg Kemnitz)
Subject: Re: running createdb for the very first time
To: postgres@postgres.berkeley.edu


This occasionally happens on some versions of SunOS - what happens is that
Postgres uses System V semaphores and shared memory.  On some versions of
SunOS, the system crashes and auto-reboots in the midst of running "initdb",
apparently somewhere in the use of one of the IPC traps to the kernel.

Since "initdb" has not yet finished, insufficient information to finish
building a database exists.  The fix is the following

% rm -rf ~postgres/data
% ~postgres/bin/initdb

The problem with initdb crashing the system seems to only occur when it is
run in the background as part of the installation procedure.  It does not
crash the system if it is run at the command line.  Sorry we don't understand
this problem more clearly since we do the vast majority of our work on
DECstations, and it is unlikely to go away in 3.0 since the Postgres IPC
mechanism has not been changed.

	Greg Kemnitz
	kemnitz@postgres.berkeley.edu