Embedded PostgreSQL service fails to restart

The root partition of the Virtual Appliance (VA) is out of disk space as backup files can take up storage space.

Free up the disk space, for example, by moving your postgre database backup folder (/usr/local/webhelpdesk/pgsql9/Backups) to a separate system, or a networked hard drive. Backups must be handled by the user themselves.

Here are the steps to move the backup files to a different partition:

1. Connect to the Virtual Appliance using an SSH client like PuTTY as an “admin” (default password is “admin”)
2. Change to the user “root”
3. command: sudo su -
4. Check if PostgreSQL is running which is most probably not

   command: ps -ef | grep webhelpdesk | grep postgres

   If you don’t see anything that looks like: “/usr/local/webhelpdesk/bin/pgsql/usr/pgsql-9.2/bin/postmaster -p 20293 -D /usr/local/webhelpdesk/bin/pgsql/var/lib/pgsql/9.2/data” then PostgreSQL service is not running

5. Check for the drive spaces of the partition

   command: df -h

   At this point, you should see the Use% in percentage for every partition. You will then see that the root partition is at 100%. Usually, the number 1 culprit are the backup files of PostgreSQL that WHD is writing to the default location “/usr/local/webhelpdesk/pgsql9/Backups/”

6. Change to the backup location and check the size of the total size of the backup files:

   cd /usr/local/webhelpdesk/pgsql9/Backups/

   command: ls -la         ** This command will list all of the backup files

   command: du -sh       **  This command is used to see the total file size of all backup files

7. At this point, you will have to educate the customer that there is another partition that should be used for the backups and that is “/data1/backup” so, let’s move those backups to it

   command: mv * /data1/backup/

   And to list the files moved in /data1/backup: 

   command: ls -la /data1/backup

8. After it is being moved, you should see a change of the drive space in the root partition

   command: df -h

9. Restart Web Help Desk

   Stop WHD

   command: service webhelpdesk stop

   Start WHD

   command: service webhelpdesk start

10. Browse or open your WHD site and login as an admin then change the PostgreSQL DB backup location from “/usr/local/webhelpdesk/pgsql9/Backups” to “/data1/backup”. Ignore the info message after saving it.