[SOLVED] How to restart Postgresql

Issue

I have PostgreSQL 9.3 and 9.4 installed on my Linux Mint machine.

How can I restart PostgreSQL 9.4?

A method to restart both versions together is also fine.

Solution

Try this as root (maybe you can use sudo or su):

/etc/init.d/postgresql restart

Without any argument the script also gives you a hint on how to restart a specific version

[Uqbar@Feynman ~] /etc/init.d/postgresql
Usage: /etc/init.d/postgresql {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|status} [version ...]

Similarly, in case you have it, you can also use the service tool:

[Uqbar@Feynman ~] service postgresql
Usage: /etc/init.d/postgresql {start|stop|restart|reload|force reload|status} [version ...]

Please, pay attention to the optional [version ...] trailing argument. That's meant to allow you, the user, to act on a specific version, in case you were running multiple ones. So you can restart version X while keeping version Y and Z untouched and running.

Finally, in case you are running systemd, then you can use systemctl like this:

[Uqbar@Feynman ~] systemctl status postgresql
● postgresql.service - PostgreSQL database server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/postgresql.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-11-14 12:33:35 CET; 7min ago
...

You can replace status with stop, start or restart as well as other actions. Please refer to the documentation for full details. In order to operate on multiple concurrent versions, the syntax is slightly different. For example to stop v12 and reload v13 you can run:

systemctl stop postgresql-12.service
systemctl reload postgresql-13.service

Thanks to @Jojo for pointing me to this very one. Finally Keep in mind that root permissions may be needed for non-informative tasks as in the other cases seen earlier.

Answered By - EnzoR