Somehow I managed to completely bugger the install of postgresql on Ubuntu. Now I want to start over from scratch, but when I "purge" the package with apt-get it still leaves traces behind such that the reinstall configuration doesn't run properly.
After I've done:
apt-get purge postgresql apt-get install postgresql
It said
Setting up postgresql-8.4 (8.4.3-0ubuntu9.10.1) ... Configuring already existing cluster (configuration: /etc/postgresql/8.4/main, data: /var/lib/postgresql/8.4/main, owner: 108:112) Error: move_conffile: required configuration file /var/lib/postgresql/8.4/main/postgresql.conf does not exist Error: could not create default cluster. Please create it manually with pg_createcluster 8.4 main --start or a similar command (see 'man pg_createcluster'). update-alternatives: using /usr/share/postgresql/8.4/man/man1/postmaster.1.gz to provide /usr/share/man/man1/postmaster.1.gz (postmaster.1.gz) in auto mode. Setting up postgresql (8.4.3-0ubuntu9.10.1) ...
I have a "/etc/postgresql" with nothing in it and "/etc/postgresql-common/" has a 'pg_upgradecluser.d' directory and root.crt and user_clusters files.
The /etc/passwd has a postgres user; the purge script doesn't appear to touch it. There's been a bunch of symptoms which I work through only to expose the next.
Right this second, when I run that command "pg_createcluster..." it complains that '/var/lib/postgresql/8.4/main/postgresql.conf does not exist', so I'll go find one of those but I'm sure that won't be the end of it.
Is there not some easy one-liner (or two) which will burn it completely and let me start over?
First: If your install isn't already damaged, you can drop unwanted PostgreSQL servers ("clusters") in Ubuntu
using pg_dropcluster. Use that in preference to a full purge and reinstall if you just want to start with a
freshly initdb'd PostgreSQL instance.
If you really need to do a full purge and reinstall, first make sure PostgreSQL isn't running.
ps -C postgres should show no results.
Now run:
apt-get --purge remove postgresql\*
to remove everything PostgreSQL from your system. Just purging the postgres package isn't enough since
it's just an empty meta-package.
Once all PostgreSQL packages have been removed, run:
rm -r /etc/postgresql/ rm -r /etc/postgresql-common/ rm -r /var/lib/postgresql/ userdel -r postgres groupdel postgres
You should now be able to:
apt-get install postgresql
or for a complete install:
apt-get install postgresql-8.4 postgresql-contrib-8.4 postgresql-doc-8.4
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