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<para>

In <option>start</option> mode, a new server is launched. The

server is started in the background, and standard input is attached to

<filename>/dev/null</filename>. The standard output and standard

error are either appended to a log file (if the <option>-l</option>

option is used), or redirected to <application>pg_ctl</application>'s

standard output (not standard error). If no log file is chosen, the

standard output of <application>pg_ctl</application> should be redirected

to a file or piped to another process such as a log rotating program

like <application>rotatelogs</>; otherwise <command>postgres</command>

will write its output to the controlling terminal (from the background)

and will not leave the shell's process group.

server is started in the background, and standard input is attached

to <filename>/dev/null</filename> (or <literal>nul</> on Windows).

On Unix-like systems, by default, the server's standard output and

standard error are send to <application>pg_ctl</application>'s

standard output (not standard error). The standard output of

<application>pg_ctl</application> should then be redirected to a

file or piped to another process such as a log rotating program

like <application>rotatelogs</>; otherwise <command>postgres</command>

will write its output to the controlling terminal (from the

background) and will not leave the shell's process group. On

Windows, by default the server's standard output and standard error

are sent to the terminal. These default behaviors can be changed

by using <option>-l</option> to append server output to a log file.

</para>

<para>