Back-port a PG 9.1 logic change to allow "pg_ctl start -w" to fail in
less than the -t timeout interval if the postmaster has clearly failed.
This is the minimum needed to make it sane to use this method of launching
the postmaster from a systemd service file.  9.1 will make this area
considerably more robust.


diff -Naur postgresql-9.0.4.orig/src/bin/pg_ctl/pg_ctl.c postgresql-9.0.4/src/bin/pg_ctl/pg_ctl.c
--- postgresql-9.0.4.orig/src/bin/pg_ctl/pg_ctl.c	2011-04-14 23:15:53.000000000 -0400
+++ postgresql-9.0.4/src/bin/pg_ctl/pg_ctl.c	2011-07-27 18:32:05.547066731 -0400
@@ -538,6 +538,22 @@
 #endif
 				print_msg(".");
 
+			/*
+			 * The postmaster should create postmaster.pid very soon after
+			 * being started.  If it's not there after we've waited 5 or more
+			 * seconds, assume startup failed and give up waiting.  (This
+			 * won't cover cases where the postmaster crashes after creating
+			 * the file, nor where there's a pre-existing postmaster, but
+			 * it's better than nothing.)
+			 */
+			if (i >= 5)
+			{
+				struct stat statbuf;
+
+				if (stat(pid_file, &statbuf) != 0)
+					break;
+			}
+
 			pg_usleep(1000000); /* 1 sec */
 		}
 	}