Postgresql FATAL: could not create lock file "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432.lock": Permission denied

Question

I try to start postgresql: /usr/pgsql-11/bin/pg_ctl -D appli/postgres/data/ -l logfile start but I don't understand why I have always this error in my logfile:

FATAL:  could not create lock file "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432.lock": Permission denied

I tried to change permission but I get always Permission denied:

chown -R postgres:postgres /var/run/postgresql
chmod 755 /var/run/postgresql

Answer 1

Edit postgresql.conf and change unix_socket_directories back to the factory default value /tmp .

Alternatively, start PostgreSQL as operating system user postgres .

Answer 2

If you installed from source, the directory should probably be '/tmp'. If you installed from a repository, the shipped start-up script should handle the permissions for you. Why not use that rather than running pg_ctl yourself?

Answer 3

I had the same problem and what did it for me was creating the directory "postgresql" which didn't exist previously for some bizarre reason and running

sudo chown postgres /var/run/postgresql

after that pg_ctl was able to create the lock file without problems.

Answer 4

I ran into it with an alpine docker image. As it turned out they changed the default:

Using /tmp for sockets allows everyone to spoof a PostgreSQL server.

There are 2 options:

1. Create the /run/postgresql dir:

    mkdir /run/postgresql && chown postgres: /run/postgresql

2. Change unix_socket_directories in postgresql.conf ( unix_socket_directories = '/tmp' ).