Unable to restart PostgreSQL after automatic shutdown

Question

My PostgreSQL server has unexpectedly shut down. In the log file (postgresql-Wed.log), I can see the following:

2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  received fast shutdown request
2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  aborting any active transactions
2025-11-12 18:18:54 FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  disconnection: session time: 2:55:32.812 user=aaa database=bbb host=000.000.000.000 port=49342
2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  background worker "logical replication launcher" (PID 2604) exited with exit code 1
2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  shutting down
2025-11-12 18:18:54 LOG:  database system is shut down

I tried to restart the server using systemctl:

$ sudo /bin/systemctl restart postgresql
Job for postgresql.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status postgresql.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

When I run the systemctl status command:

$ /bin/systemctl status postgresql.service
? postgresql.service - PostgreSQL database server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/postgresql.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2025-11-12 21:00:47 EST; 21min ago
  Process: 11910 ExecStart=/usr/bin/postmaster -D ${PGDATA} (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Process: 11908 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/postgresql-check-db-dir postgresql (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 11910 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.10 (Ootpa)

PostgreSQL version: 13.22

How can I fix this an restart the server ?

Did you consider looking in the Postgres log file? Perhaps it's trying to tell you something. — mustaccio
– mustaccio, Commented Nov 13 at 6:14
Another thing you should try is to become user postgres and run /usr/pgsql-13/bin/pg_ctl start -D /var/lib/pgsql/13/data. Please add the errors you get to the question. Do not add it as a comment. — Laurenz Albe
– Laurenz Albe, Commented Nov 13 at 7:25
@mustaccio the first code block in my question is the end of the log file. I did not find anything suspicious in the rest of the log. — Sébastien Clément
– Sébastien Clément, Commented Nov 13 at 13:29
@Laurenz Albe Since we were able to restart the server, it was finally not necessary, but thanks for the suggestion! — Sébastien Clément
– Sébastien Clément, Commented Nov 14 at 12:56

Sébastien Clément · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-14 19:34:19Z

It seems the culprit was a change in permissions of /var/lib/pgsql/data, likely caused by a patch/reboot of the Linux OS earlier that day.

Indeed, looking at error messages in /var/log/messages:

Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] systemd[1]: Starting PostgreSQL database server...
Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] postmaster[1755]: 2025-11-12 18:21:24 FATAL:  data directory "/var/lib/pgsql/data" has invalid permissions
Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] postmaster[1755]: 2025-11-12 18:21:24 DETAIL:  Permissions should be u=rwx (0700) or u=rwx,g=rx (0750).
Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] systemd[1]: postgresql.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] systemd[1]: postgresql.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 12 18:21:24 [servername] systemd[1]: Failed to start PostgreSQL database server.

After patch/reboot, /var/lib/pgsql/data had 770 permissions, which prevented PostgreSQL from starting:

drwxrwx---. 22 postgres postgres 4096 Nov 12 18:18 /var/lib/pgsql/data

We changed them to 700:

drwx------. 22 postgres postgres 4096 Nov 12 18:18 /var/lib/pgsql/data

The PostgreSQL server could then be restarted.

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