/usr/lib/postgresql/17/bin/initdb: invalid option -- 'p'

[Palmik]

Setup:

Moving from image: pgvector/pgvector:0.7.0-pg16 to pgautoupgrade/pgautoupgrade:latest.

Log:

postgres_app-1  |
postgres_app-1  | PostgreSQL Database directory appears to contain a database; Skipping initialization
postgres_app-1  |
postgres_app-1  | ************************************
postgres_app-1  | PostgreSQL data directory: /var/lib/postgresql/data
postgres_app-1  | ************************************
postgres_app-1  | *******************************************************************************************
postgres_app-1  | Performing PG upgrade on version 16 database files.  Upgrading to version 17.5
postgres_app-1  | *******************************************************************************************
postgres_app-1  | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Checking for left over artifacts from a failed previous autoupgrade...
postgres_app-1  | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | No artifacts found from a failed previous autoupgrade.  Continuing the process.
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Creating upgrade lock file at /var/lib/postgresql/data/upgrade_in_progress.lock
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Creating OLD temporary directory /var/lib/postgresql/data/old
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Creating OLD temporary directory is complete
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Moving existing data files into OLD temporary directory
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/base' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/base'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/global' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/global'
postgres_app-1  | mv: cannot move '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old' to a subdirectory of itself, '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/old'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_commit_ts' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_commit_ts'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_dynshmem' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_dynshmem'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_hba.conf' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_hba.conf'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_ident.conf' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_ident.conf'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_logical' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_logical'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_multixact'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_notify' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_notify'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_replslot' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_replslot'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_serial' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_serial'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_snapshots' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_snapshots'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_stat'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat_tmp' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_stat_tmp'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_subtrans' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_subtrans'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_tblspc' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_tblspc'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_twophase' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_twophase'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/PG_VERSION' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/PG_VERSION'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_wal' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_wal'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_xact' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/pg_xact'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/postgresql.auto.conf' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/postgresql.auto.conf'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/postgresql.conf' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/postgresql.conf'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/postmaster.opts' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/postmaster.opts'
postgres_app-1  | renamed '/var/lib/postgresql/data/upgrade_in_progress.lock' -> '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/upgrade_in_progress.lock'
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Moving existing data files into OLD temporary directory is complete
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Creating NEW temporary directory /var/lib/postgresql/data/new
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Creating NEW temporary directory is complete
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | -----------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Changing permissions of temporary directories to 0700
postgres_app-1  | -----------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Changing permissions of temporary directories is complete
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Remove postmaster.pid file from PG data directory
postgres_app-1  | -------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | ------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Determining our own initdb arguments
postgres_app-1  | ------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | 2025-08-21 07:03:45.802 UTC [41] LOG:  checkpoint starting: shutdown immediate
postgres_app-1  | 2025-08-21 07:03:45.869 UTC [41] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 2 buffers (0.0%); 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=0.027 s, sync=0.010 s, total=0.076 s; sync files=3, longest=0.004 s, average=0.004 s; distance=0 kB, estimate=0 kB; lsn=0/E4080FA0, redo lsn=0/E4080FA0
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | The initdb arguments we determined are: --encoding=UTF8 -p 31102
postgres_app-1  | ---------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Old database using collation settings: '--encoding=UTF8 -p 31102'.  Initialising new database with those settings too
postgres_app-1  | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgres_app-1  | Initialising PostgreSQL 17.5 data directory
postgres_app-1  | /usr/lib/postgresql/17/bin/initdb: invalid option -- 'p'
postgres_app-1  | initdb: hint: Try "initdb --help" for more information.
postgres_app-1 exited with code 0
postgres_app-1  | The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".
postgres_app-1  | This user must also own the server process.
postgres_app-1  |
postgres_app-1  | The database cluster will be initialized with locale "en_US.utf8".
postgres_app-1  | The default database encoding has accordingly been set to "UTF8".
postgres_app-1  | The default text search configuration will be set to "english".
postgres_app-1  |
postgres_app-1  | Data page checksums are disabled.
postgres_app-1  |
postgres_app-1  | initdb: error: directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data" exists but is not empty
postgres_app-1  | initdb: hint: If you want to create a new database system, either remove or empty the directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data" or run initdb with an argument other than "/var/lib/postgresql/data".

There are 2 errors that happen:

postgres_app-1  | mv: cannot move '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old' to a subdirectory of itself, '/var/lib/postgresql/data/old/old'

And later:

postgres_app-1  | Initialising PostgreSQL 17.5 data directory
postgres_app-1  | /usr/lib/postgresql/17/bin/initdb: invalid option -- 'p'
postgres_app-1  | initdb: hint: Try "initdb --help" for more information.
postgres_app-1 exited with code 0

The full docker compose:

version: "3.8"
name: app-dev
services:
  postgres_app:
    # image: pgautoupgrade/pgautoupgrade:latest
    image: pgvector/pgvector:0.7.0-pg16
    restart: always
    command: -p 31102
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DATABASE_PASSWORD:?}
      POSTGRES_USER: app_dev
      POSTGRES_DB: app_dev
    expose:
      - "31102"
    ports:
      - "31102:31102"
    volumes:
      - postgres-app-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    shm_size: 4G

volumes:
  postgres-app-data: {}

[andyundso]

can you post your docker compose before and after the change to pgautoupgrade?

[Palmik]

can you post your docker compose before and after the change to pgautoupgrade?

Sure, added it to the original post.

[andyundso]

I would likely it is caused by #129. Your -p for changing the port gets forwarded to the initdb process, which does not know how to handle this. @spwoodcock do you have an elegant idea in mind how to strip away arguments that initdb might not know?

I am also not quite sure why you change the port of the actual Postgres instance inside the Docker instead of just adjusting your port mapping (31102:5432),

[spwoodcock]

I would likely it is caused by #129. Your -p for changing the port gets forwarded to the initdb process, which does not know how to handle this. @spwoodcock do you have an elegant idea in mind how to strip away arguments that initdb might not know?

I am also not quite sure why you change the port of the actual Postgres instance inside the Docker instead of just adjusting your port mapping (31102:5432),

Ah yes, that is an unintended consequence I didn't consider 🤦‍♂️

But I was going to say exactly the same thing.

Adjusting the port isn't necessary here. Remove the command from the compose file, and instead update ports to:

    - "31102:5432"

That should fix your problem 👍

[!NOTE] If other users also report the same using useful custom command params (they mostly match between initdb and postgres), then I'll dig into this and try to find a nice solution.

Edit: saying that, perhaps a warning that is more user friendly explaining the issue could be a good start.