Cannot connect to postgresql on port 5432

Question

I installed the Bitnami Django stack which included PostgreSQL 8.4.

When I run psql -U postgres I get the following error:

psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

PG is definitely running and the pg_hba.conf file looks like this:

# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            CIDR-ADDRESS            METHOD

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local   all             all                                     md5
# IPv4 local connections:
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 md5

What gives?

"Proof" that pg is running:

root@assaf-desktop:/home/assaf# ps axf | grep postgres
14338 ?        S      0:00 /opt/djangostack-1.3-0/postgresql/bin/postgres -D /opt/djangostack-1.3-0/postgresql/data -p 5432
14347 ?        Ss     0:00  \_ postgres: writer process                                                                        
14348 ?        Ss     0:00  \_ postgres: wal writer process                                                                    
14349 ?        Ss     0:00  \_ postgres: autovacuum launcher process                                                           
14350 ?        Ss     0:00  \_ postgres: stats collector process                                                               
15139 pts/1    S+     0:00              \_ grep --color=auto postgres
root@assaf-desktop:/home/assaf# netstat -nltp | grep 5432
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:5432          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      14338/postgres  
tcp6       0      0 ::1:5432                :::*                    LISTEN      14338/postgres  
root@assaf-desktop:/home/assaf# 

Answer 1

The error message refers to a Unix-domain socket, so you need to tweak your netstat invocation to not exclude them. So try it without the option -t:

netstat -nlp | grep 5432

I would guess that the server is actually listening on the socket /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 rather than the /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432 that your client is attempting to connect to. This is a typical problem when using hand-compiled or third-party PostgreSQL packages on Debian or Ubuntu, because the source default for the Unix-domain socket directory is /tmp but the Debian packaging changes it to /var/run/postgresql.

Possible workarounds:

• Use the clients supplied by your third-party package (call /opt/djangostack-1.3-0/postgresql/bin/psql). Possibly deinstall the Ubuntu-supplied packages altogether (might be difficult because of other reverse dependencies).
• Fix the socket directory of the third-party package to be compatible with Debian/Ubuntu.
• Use -h localhost to connect via TCP/IP instead.
• Use -h /tmp or equivalent PGHOST setting to point to the right directory.
• Don't use third-party packages.

Answer 2

You can use psql -U postgres -h localhost to force the connection to happen over TCP instead of UNIX domain sockets; your netstat output shows that the PostgreSQL server is listening on localhost's port 5432.

You can find out which local UNIX socket is used by the PostgrSQL server by using a different invocavtion of netstat:

netstat -lp --protocol=unix | grep postgres

At any rate, the interfaces on which the PostgreSQL server listens to are configured in postgresql.conf.

Answer 3

Just create a softlink like this :

ln -s /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432

Answer 4

I had to compile PostgreSQL 8.1 on Debian Squeeze because I am using Project Open, which is based on OpenACS and will not run on more recent versions of PostgreSQL.

The default compile configuration puts the unix_socket in /tmp, but Project Open, which relies on PostgreSQL, would not work because it looks for the unix_socket at /var/run/postgresql.

There is a setting in postgresql.conf to set the location of the socket. My problem was that either I could set for /tmp and psql worked, but not project open, or I could set it for /var/run/postgresql and psql would not work but project open did.

One resolution to the issue is to set the socket for /var/run/postgresql and then run psql, based on Peter's suggestion, as:

psql -h /var/run/postgresql

This runs locally using local permissions. The only drawback is that it is more typing than simply "psql".

The other suggestion that someone made was to create a symbolic link between the two locations. This also worked, but, the link disappeared upon reboot. It maybe easier to just use the -h argument, however, I created the symbolic link from within the PostgreSQL script in /etc/init.d. I placed the symbolic link create command in the "start" section. Of course, when I issue a stop and start or restart command, it will try to recreate an existing symbolic link, but other than warning message, there is probably no harm in that.

In my case, instead of:

ln -s /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432

I have

ln -s /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432 /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432

and have explicitly set the unix_socket to /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432 in postgresql.conf.