Problem restarting postgres on OS X

Question

I am running PostgreSQL in OS X. I am trying to restart the postgres service. When I attempt to sudo su postgres, nothing happens

admin$ sudo su postgres
admin$

Then, I try using -l and this is what I get

admin$ sudo su -l postgres
su: no directory

Unless I can get su access to the postgres account, I cannot figure out how to restart postgres

Yavor Shahpasov · Answer 1 · 2011-08-17 19:02:49Z

up vote 0 down vote

This means that the postgres user does not have a home directory or the directory does not exist/is not accessible

answered Aug 17 '11 at 19:02

Yavor Shahpasov
39115

	Thanks. Is it as simple as creating a /home/postgres directory and chowing it to postgres? – Andrew Aug 17 '11 at 19:09
	Yes but basically you should use pg_ctl to stop start postgres. The weird thing is I just searched for it on my mac and I could not find it. – Yavor Shahpasov Aug 17 '11 at 19:27
	It appears I don't have it installed :) that feels stupid. Anyhow you should search for pg_ctl (find / -name pg_ctl as root). Then use that command to start stop it. postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/app-pg-ctl.html – Yavor Shahpasov Aug 17 '11 at 19:31

1 Answer