I tried that, and it just runs into the problem with the first sub dir
it tries to create:

ed9i03:/home/dparker/temp
% initdb -D /home/dparker/temp/testdb
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user
"dparker".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale C.

fixing permissions on existing directory /home/dparker/temp/testdb ...
ok
creating directory /home/dparker/temp/testdb/global ... initdb: could
not create directory "/home/dparker": Operation not applicable
initdb: removing contents of data directory "/home/dparker/temp/testdb"
ed9i03:/home/dparker/temp

truss:

chmod("/home/dparker/temp/testdb", 0700) = 0
ok
write(1, " o k\n", 3) = 3
creating directory /home/dparker/temp/testdb/global ... write(1, " c r e
a t i n g d i r".., 56) = 56
umask(0) = 077
umask(077) = 0
mkdir("/home", 0777) Err#17 EEXIST
xstat(2, "/home", 0x08045C20) = 0
mkdir("/home/dparker", 0777) Err#89 ENOSYS
umask(077) = 077
fstat64(2, 0x08045000) = 0
initdbwrite(2, " i n i t d b", 6) = 6
: could not create directory "write(2, " : c o u l d n o t ".., 30)
= 30
/home/dparkerwrite(2, " / h o m e / d p a r k e".., 13) = 13
": write(2, " " : ", 3) = 3
Operation not applicablewrite(2, " O p e r a t i o n n o".., 24)
= 24


- DAP

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
>Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:22 PM
>To: David Parker
>Cc: Kenneth Lareau; pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
>Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Strange issue with initdb on 8.0 and
>Solaris automounts
>
>"David Parker" <dparker@tazznetworks.com> writes:
>> Did initdb previously just assume the -D path existed, and now it is
>> trying to create the whole path, if necessary?
>
>Pre-8.0 it was using mkdir(1), which might possibly contain
>some weird workaround for this case on Solaris.
>
>I suppose that manually creating the data directory before
>running initdb would also avoid this issue, since the mkdir(2)
>loop is only entered if we don't find the directory in existence.
>
> regards, tom lane
>

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