bad posix_fadvise support causes initdb to exit ungracefully
Merlin Moncure <mmoncure@gmail.com>
From: Merlin Moncure <mmoncure@gmail.com>
To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2011-06-15T16:12:20Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Due to unfortunate environmental conditions (don't ask) I've been trying to get postgres 9.0 up and running on a fairly ancient linux -- redhat EL 3 which as kernel 2.4.21. initdb borks on the create database step with the error message "child process exited with error code 139". A bit of tracing revealed the exit was happening at the pg_flush_data which basically wraps posix_fadvise. Disabling fadvise support in pg_config_manual.h fixed the problem. Things brings up a couple of questions: *) Are linuxes this old out of support? *) Should configure be testing for working posix_fadvise? merlin