So, there were two issues.
Even though admin is in the admin group and had Full Control under effective permissions, somehow that wasn't enough.
I noticed that I can run the v14 service, but it had Admin explicitly listed with full control on Data.
Once I added that, I started getting error messages when run from CLI and could fix the issue in pg_hba.conf.
Now the service starts.
Thanks,
Brad.
Am 22.09.23 um 20:40 schrieb Brad White:
> I'm trying to start a v15 service on a Windows 2012 R2 server where it
> hasn't been used for a while.
> The service is set to run as pgUser.
> pgUser owns the Postgres directory, including the data dir.
>
> The command the service is using is
> ' "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\15\bin\pg_ctl.exe" runservice -N
> "postgresql-x64-15" -D "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\15\data" -w'
>
> First off, it's interesting that "runservice" isn't listed as an option for
> pg_ctl.
>
> Windows Event Viewer shows it starting up, handing off logging to pg_log,
> then timing out.
> Waiting for server startup...
> 2023-09-22 12:31:15.173 CDT [5000] LOG: redirecting log output to
> logging collector process
> 2023-09-22 12:31:15.173 CDT [5000] HINT: Future log output will
> appear in directory "pg_log".
> Timed out waiting for server startup
>
> It does create a log file in pg_log, but it is empty.
>
> If I sub 'start' for 'runservice' and try to start it from CLI, I get
> C:\Users\administrator>"C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\15\bin\pg_ctl.exe"
> start
> -N "postgresql-x64-15" -D "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\15\data" -w
> waiting for server to start....2023-09-22 12:48:05.438 CDT [4796]
> FATAL: could
> not create lock file "postmaster.pid": Permission denied
> stopped waiting
> pg_ctl: could not start server
> Examine the log output.
>
> And again, I get an empty log file in pg_log.
> Is there somewhere else I should check?
>
> I get the same results if I pass username and password with -U and -P
>
> I'm running as administrator, so not sure how I get permission denied
> Checking EffectiveAccess shows that admin and pgUser have full control, so
> I assume this message is a red herring, standing in for the real issue.
>
> Without an actual error message to fix, I'm not sure how to proceed.
>
> Thanks,
> Brad.
>
if you want to run postgresql server then you could use "pg_ctl start ..."
but to run it as a windows service you first need to register it as a
service. so look at pg_ctl register in the options.