PostgreSQL 9: could not fsync file “base/16386”: Invalid argument

Question

I'm trying to test a small PostgreSQL setup, so I cobbled together a quick local install. However, when I'm trying to create my personal db with createdb, it chokes on errors like this (notably, it starts with base/16384 the first time, and increments each time I run it). Anyone know what's going on here, or if there's some trivial config I missed that would cause this? Thanks, and this is somewhat time-critical, so please respond if you do know anything. Thanks!

UPDATES:
I'm running this on a CentOS 5 server, apologies that I don't have too many further details (it's a shared account on that server). uname -a has the following output:

Linux {OMITTED} 2.6.18-194.11.4.el5 #1 SMP Tue Sep 21 05:04:09 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I installed PostgreSQL from source from:

http://wwwmaster.postgresql.org/download/mirrors-ftp/source/v9.0.1/postgresql-9.0.1.tar.bz2

built in my home directory and installed to prefix=$HOME/local/pgsql.

Here's a terminal readout for me attempting to create my user's db on a fresh data setup:

[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ killall postgres
LOG: autovacuum launcher shutting down
LOG: received smart shutdown request
LOG: shutting down
LOG: database system is shut down
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ rm -r tmp
mk[1]+ Done ../local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D $HOME/tmp (wd: ~/tmp)
(wd now: ~)
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ mkdir tmp
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D $HOME/tmp
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "htung".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale en_US.UTF-8.
The default database encoding has accordingly been set to UTF8.
The default text search configuration will be set to "english".

fixing permissions on existing directory /afs/{OMITTED}/htung/tmp ... ok
creating subdirectories ... ok
selecting default max_connections ... 100
selecting default shared_buffers ... 32MB
creating configuration files ... ok
creating template1 database in /afs/{OMITTED}/htung/tmp/base/1 ... ok
initializing pg_authid ... ok
initializing dependencies ... ok
creating system views ... ok
loading system objects' descriptions ... ok
creating conversions ... ok
creating dictionaries ... ok
setting privileges on built-in objects ... ok
creating information schema ... ok
loading PL/pgSQL server-side language ... ok
vacuuming database template1 ... ok
copying template1 to template0 ... ok
copying template1 to postgres ... ok

WARNING: enabling "trust" authentication for local connections
You can change this by editing pg_hba.conf or using the -A option the
next time you run initdb.

Success. You can now start the database server using:

local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /afs/{OMITTED}/htung/tmp  

or
local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /afs/{OMITTED}/htung/tmp -l logfile start

[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D $HOME/tmp
LOG: database system was shut down at 2010-11-15 13:47:25 PST
LOG: autovacuum launcher started
LOG: database system is ready to accept connections

[1]+ Stopped local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D $HOME/tmp
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ bg
[1]+ local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D $HOME/tmp &
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$ local/pgsql/bin/createdb
ERROR: could not fsync file "base/16384": Invalid argument
STATEMENT: CREATE DATABASE htung;

createdb: database creation failed: ERROR: could not fsync file "base/16384": Invalid argument
[htung@{OMITTED}:~]$

Answer 1

I would guess that you're possibly running into the SE linux system here. I'd recommend to either turn off SELinux and see if that works, or to install from RPMs available from the postgresql website.