pgPedia

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Top / P

• Browse categories
• PostgreSQL releases
  • PostgreSQL 15 (beta1)
  • PostgreSQL 14 (latest)
  • PostgreSQL 13
  • PostgreSQL 12
  • PostgreSQL 11
  • PostgreSQL 10
  • PostgreSQL 9.6 (EOL)

Version charts

SQL commands
System catalog tables
System catalog views
System statistics views
File system functions

Contrib modules
Object Identifier Types
Progress reporting views
Storage parameters (relopts)

Useful overviews

xlog renaming in Pg 10
Online tools for PostgreSQL
Abbreviations and acronyms

Useful links

PostgreSQL documentation
PostgreSQL feature matrix
PostgreSQL versioning policy
PostgreSQL latest versions

@postgrespedia

pg_ctl

pg_ctl is a server utility for starting, stopping and restarting the PostgreSQL server; it can also be used to execute initdb, reload the server configuration, promote a standby to primary, and display the server status. On Windows systems pg_ctl can also be used to register/unregister PostgreSQL as a service.

pg_ctl was added in PostgreSQL 7.0.

Usage

Shutdown modes

The basic command to shut down a PostgreSQL instance is:

pg_ctl -D /path/to/data/directory stop [ -m mode ]

note that pgctl stop shuts down a running PostgreSQL server in one of three modes - fast, smart, and immediate, which can optionally be specified via the -m option

• fast rolls back active transactions, forcibly disconnects clients and stops any online backup; this is the default from PostgreSQL 9.5 and should execute quite quickly.
• smart waits for until all active clients are disconnects and any online backups completed before shutting down; depending on system activity it can therefore take some time before the shutdown finally takes place. This was the default up until PostgreSQL 9.4.
• immediate aborts all processes immediately and is effectively a server crash; PostgreSQL will initially run in crash recovery mode when next started. There is a risk of data loss when using this shutdown mode and it should only be used in emergencies.

Change history

• PostgreSQL 12
  • logrotate option added (commit ec743699)
  • PostgreSQL server process will properly detatch after pg_ctl start (commit bb24439c)
• PostgreSQL 11
  • kill option added (commit 2e83db3a)
• PostgreSQL 10
  • defaults to waiting (command line option -w/--wait) for all actions, including start (commit 05cd12ed)
  • long option --option for existing option -o added (commit caf936b0)
  • now checks for postmaster startup 10 times per second, instead of once (commit c61559ec)
  • checks postmaster.pid for postmaster status, rather than attempting to connect (commit f13ea95f)
  • always exits with a non-zero status if an operation does not complete within the specified timeout (commit 1bac5f55)
• PostgreSQL 9.5
  • environment variable PGCTLTIMEOUT added (commit 725f0ce2)
  • default shutdown mode changed from smart to fast (commit 0badb069)
  • support for multiple -o options (commit ebe30ad5)
• PostgreSQL 9.4
  • now returns exit code 4 if the specified data directory is inaccessible (commit 11d205e2)
• PostgreSQL 9.1
  • promote option added (commit 4695da5a)
• PostgreSQL 9.0
  • init/initdb option added (commit a37b001b)
  • can be used safely to start the postmaster during a system reboot (commit 8f5500e6)
• PostgreSQL 8.4
  • restart option preserves command-line arguments (commit 067f1e5f)
• PostgreSQL 8.3
  • option -c added to allow server crashes to produce core files (commit 226e9fff)
  • option -t added to control timeouts for server startup/shutdown; default: 60 seconds (commit 6e414a17)
• PostgreSQL 8.0
  • converted from a shell script to a fully-fledged C program (commit f3d6d948)
  • pg_ctl can no longer be executed by the root user (commit c58675b4)
  • register and kill options added for Windows support (commit f8dd00c3)
• PostgreSQL 7.2
  • reload option added to to send SIGHUP (commit 196700c3)
• PostgreSQL 7.0
  • added (commit 5b912b08)

References

Categories

See also