title: Unable to start sever, likely due to misplaced .conf. How do can I verify the cause and find/replace .conf?
body: <p>I'm new to psql, and am having some issues that I think are being caused by a misplaced .conf file.  When I tried to log into a database I created earlier I get an error</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ psql corporation
  psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
      Is the server running locally and accepting
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Based on the <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/server-start.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">psql docs</a> it looks like the server isn't running and ps confirms this.  Since I don't remember having to start it last time I used psql I was a little confused, but it seemed easy to fix.  Unfortunately, my attempts to start the sever have not worked. Using the first method suggested by the docs gets me</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
  postgres cannot access the server configuration file "/usr/local/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf": No such file or directory
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>While the second method results in</p>
  
  <pre><code>$postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data &gt;logfile 2&gt;&amp;1 &amp;
  [1] 3165
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Ps confirms that neither of these methods started postgres, and when I tried to open the database anyway, to double check, it returns a slightly different error message than before.</p>
  
  <pre><code>psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
  Is the server running locally and accepting
  connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"?
  [1]+  Exit 2                  postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data &gt; logfile 2&gt;&amp;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7975556/how-to-start-postgresql-server-on-mac-os-x">How to start PostgreSQL server on Mac OS X?</a> seems related, but has some gaps.  Just running initdb wasn't enough, and I don't seem to have a .conf.sample.  Do I just need to create a new .conf from scratch or what?
  For reference I'm running Snow Leopard, I originally tried to manually instal psql, but ended up installing brew then brew installing psql.</p>