A non-root user EM install/upgrade of the Postgres database encounters messages "Not enough shared memory" & "Please increase shared memory to 6693928832 or higher"

Products

• CA Application Performance Management Agent (APM / Wily / Introscope)
• INTROSCOPE

Issue/Introduction

Using Linux EM installer as non-root user to install or upgrade Postgres encounters message "Not enough shared memory".

For a GUI install the user receives message:

Not enough shared memory 

------------------------ 

Please increase shared memory to 6693928832 or higher. You can set this value in /etc/sysctl.conf. 

 

For a Silent install the install log contains:

Install Database Failed 

Status: ERROR 

...

(STDOUT: shutting down database ... 

database down ... 

Found RedHat version 5 

kernel.shmmax = 268435456 

Shared memory set 

detecting size of shared memory ... 

found shared memory size = 268435456 

** Error: Not enough shared memory ... please increase shared memory to greater than 6693928832 

Install Postgres failed with exit code 1 

)

Environment

APM 9.6, 9.7, 10.x

Cause

A non-root install requires the Linux shared memory parameter kernel.shmmax in /etc/sysctl.conf to be set to a minimum of 6693928832. 

Resolution

Using an account with root privileges:

a. Edit the file /etc/sysctl.conf and set: 

kernel.shmmax = 6693928832 

b. Reload the /etc/sysctl.conf settings using command "sysctl --system" and confirm the new value for kernel.shmmax is visible.

Then re-run the EM installer as the non-root user.