What is going wrong with postgresql initdb? Why is the `UTF-8` encoding not getting enforced?

Question

I am using PostgreSQL 9.1. Trying to enforce UTF8 encoding as default.

This is what I am doing.

service postgresql initdb -E 'UTF-8' \
               --lc-collate='en_US.UTF-8' \
               --lc-ctype=locale='en_US.UTF-8';

Although the initilization process goes on without any problem,

a \l at the psql prompt gives there details.

                             List of databases
   Name    | Owner    |Encoding  | Collate | Ctype |   Access privileges   
-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+-----------------------
 postgres  | postgres | LATIN1   | en_US   | en_US | 

Why is the UTF-8 encoding not getting enforced?

Answer 1

If initdb is run through a run-level script of the OS. This script might not pass on the parameters.

I couldn't run initdb directly as a superuser. Gave an

initdb: cannot be run as root
Please log in (using, e.g., "su") as the (unprivileged) user that will
own the server process.

error. After logging in as an unprivileged user I was able to initialize the db with the proper encoding.

To initilize the db, run initdb directly. The command

/usr/bin/initdb --pgdata=/var/lib/pgsql9/data/ -E 'UTF-8' \
--lc-collate='en_US.UTF-8' \
--lc-ctype='en_US.UTF-8';

was run under the non-superuser postgres.