PostgreSQL on Ubuntu - Using conf files for recovery I am using PostgreSQL 8.4 on Ubuntu LTS 10.04.02 server version. I use pg_standby to restore the data and for database recovery created a recovery.conf and placed it on /etc/postgresql/8.4/main where rest of conf files present and tried to start the DB using 

sudo service postgresql start


expecting the service to recognize that I am doing a recovery using recovery.conf. I found this file was ignored. Then, I had to copy all *.conf file to my data directory (in my case /dbdata/data) and then, instead of using script from init.d, I had to start the database from 'postgres' user with 

/usr/lib/postgresql/8.4/bin/pg_ctl -D /dbdata/proddata  -l /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-8.4-main.log start


How I can make my recovery procedure to obey /etc/init.d/postgresql start|stop|restart
or to have pg_ctl command to look for conf files /etc/postgresql/8.4/main ?

Note : I am relatively newbie to PostgreSQL and to database administration in general
The recovery.conf file needs to go into the data directory (/var/lib/postgresql/...).  The other configuration files can stay where they are (/etc/postgresql/...).  Then a normal restart should do what you want.