How to mount a postgresql volume using Aws EBS in Kubernete

this is from dockerhub description...

PGDATA This optional variable can be used to define another location - like a subdirectory - for the database files. The default is /var/lib/postgresql/data, but if the data volume you're using is a filesystem mountpoint (like with GCE persistent disks), Postgres initdb recommends a subdirectory (for example /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata ) be created to contain the data.

so, create one more deeper dicerctory and it works

So what's the way to correctly mount a postgresql volume using Aws EBS

You are on a right path...

Error you get is because you want to use root folder of mounted volume / as postgresql Data dir and postgresql complains that it is not best practice to do so since it is not empty and contains already some data inside (namely lost+found directory).

It is far better to locate data dir in separate empty subfolder (/postgres for example) and give postgresql clean slate when creating its file structure. You didn't get same thing on minicube since you most probably mounted host folder that didn't have anything inside (was empty) and didn't trigger such a complaint.

To do so, you would need initially empty subPath of your volume (empty /postgres subfolder on your PV for example) mounted to appropriate mount point (/var/lib/posgresql/data) in your pod. Note that you can name subPath and mount point end folder the same name, they are different here just as an example where test-db-volume/postgres folder would be mounted on pod to /var/lib/postgresql/data folder:

...
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/data
  name: test-db-volume
  subPath: postgres
...

I fixed this by telling postgres where i want the data base to be created with the PGDATA env. It creates the empty directory and inits the DB. If you dont have this then it assumes you want to create it in the room mount directory which for me had the ;ost+found directory that postgres did not like

containers:
  - name: postgres
    imagePullPolicy: Always
    image: postgres:9.6
    ports:
    - containerPort: 5432
      name: postgres
    env:
    - name: POSTGRES_DB
      value: "mydb"
    - name: PGDATA
      value: /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata
    volumeMounts:
      - mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/data
        name: postgres-data