Synopsis
pg_ctl start [-w] [-s] [-D datadir] [-l filename] [-o options] [-p path]
pg_ctl stop [-W] [-s] [-D datadir] [-m
s[mart] | f[ast] | i[mmediate]
]
pg_ctl restart [-w] [-s] [-D datadir] [-m
s[mart] | f[ast] | i[mmediate]
] [-o options]
pg_ctl reload [-s] [-D datadir]
pg_ctl status [-D datadir]
pg_ctl kill [signal_name] [process_id]
Description
pg_ctl is a utility for starting,
stopping, or restarting the EnterpriseDB
backend server (edb-postmaster), or displaying the
status of a running server. Although the server can be started
manually, pg_ctl encapsulates tasks such
as redirecting log output and properly detaching from the terminal
and process group. It also provides convenient options for
controlled shutdown.
In start mode, a new server is launched. The
server is started in the background, and standard input is attached to
/dev/null. The standard output and standard
error are either appended to a log file (if the -l
option is used), or redirected to pg_ctl's
standard output (not standard error). If no log file is chosen, the
standard output of pg_ctl should be redirected
to a file or piped to another process such as a log rotating program
like rotatelogs; otherwise the postmaster
will write its output to the controlling terminal (from the background)
and will not leave the shell's process group.
In stop mode, the server that is running in
the specified data directory is shut down. Three different
shutdown methods can be selected with the -m
option: "Smart" mode waits for all the clients to
disconnect. This is the default. "Fast" mode does
not wait for clients to disconnect. All active transactions are
rolled back and clients are forcibly disconnected, then the
server is shut down. "Immediate" mode will abort
all server processes without a clean shutdown. This will lead to
a recovery run on restart.
restart mode effectively executes a stop followed
by a start. This allows changing the postmaster
command-line options.
reload mode simply sends the
postmaster process a SIGHUP
signal, causing it to reread its configuration files
(edb-postgres.conf,
pg_hba.conf, etc.). This allows changing of
configuration-file options that do not require a complete restart
to take effect.
status mode checks whether a server is running in
the specified data directory. If it is, the PID
and the command line options that were used to invoke it are
displayed.
kill mode allows you to send a signal to a specified
process. This is particularly valuable for Microsoft Windows
which does not have a kill command. Use
--help to see a list of supported signal names.
Examples
Starting the Server
To start up a server:
$ pg_ctl start
An example of starting the server, blocking until the server has
come up is:
$ pg_ctl -w start
For a server using port 5433, and
running without fsync
, use:
$ pg_ctl -o "-F -p 5433" start
Stopping the Server
$ pg_ctl stop
stops the server. Using the -m switch allows one
to control how the backend shuts down.
Restarting the Server
Restarting the server is almost equivalent to stopping the
server and starting it again
except that pg_ctl saves and reuses the command line options that
were passed to the previously running instance. To restart
the server in the simplest form, use:
$ pg_ctl restart
To restart server,
waiting for it to shut down and to come up:
$ pg_ctl -w restart
To restart using port 5433 and disabling fsync
after restarting:
$ pg_ctl -o "-F -p 5433" restart
Showing the Server Status
Here is a sample status output from
pg_ctl:
$ pg_ctl status
pg_ctl: postmaster is running (pid: 13718)
Command line was:
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postmaster '-D' '/usr/local/pgsql/data' '-p' '5433' '-B' '128'
This is the command line that would be invoked in restart mode.