Postgresql server fails to start in recovery with systemd

I ran into an issue while trying to setup a simple test system for myself to move from CentOS 6 to 7. When I was about to start a standby slave systemd reported PostgreSQL startup timeout and stopped it. Although it was running perfectly fine doing recovery.

Issue

In var log message systemd reports failure

Meanwhile in postgresql

Cause

In the systemd script postgresql is being started with -w flag which means ”  -w                     wait until operation complete”. Hence systemd fails after configured timeout.

Fix

Change the -w flag to -W and systemd service file (/usr/lib/systemd/system/postgresql-9.5.service) and reload the daemon.

Hopefully this will save you couple of minutes debugging.

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