How can I tell upstart to restart a service when a different service is restarted?

Since the postgresql server is still using deprecated System-V init script there are two options:

• Emit events from the existing System-V init script
• Port existing System-V init script to upstart job

In both cases you can use start on started-postgresql and stop on stopping-postgresql in your job. As mentioned in the comment my-openerp will start/stop always on started/stopped postgresql and not only after upgrade.

If you opt for emitting events from the existing System-V init script you will need to add in /etc/init.d/postgresql:

# just before the service is started
initctl emit starting-postgresql
# just after the service is started
initctl emit started-postgresql 
# just before stopping the service
initctl emit stopping-postgresql
# just after the service is stopped
initctl emit stopped-postgresql

For details see Helpful Tips in Writing Services section on Ubuntu Boot up Howto page.

In case that you opt for creating Upstart job the simplest configuration might look like this:

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]
respawn

exec su -c "/etc/postgresql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data" postgres

More elaborated Upstart config can be found here.

I would play around and instead of starting postgresql on runlevel [2345] perhaps say

start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE!=lo

or

start on started networking

You might also consider adding kill timeout stanza

kill timeout 300

To elaborate on schkovich's first option, here's a simple modification to the System V /etc/init.d/postgresql script.

So whenever postgres is sent "start/restart"/"reload"/"force-restart", I send the "starting-postgresql" event before the command is issued, and the "started-postgresql" after its finished. Similarly, with "stop", I send the "stopping-postgresql" event before the command and "stopped-postgresql" after its issued.

I'm only showing the final case block (case "$1" in [...] esac at the bottom of the script. To make the changes clearer (in case future versions of postgres modify the system-V script, I've highlighted the lines that need to be inserted by putting them between #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event and #### END emit-upstart-event.

case "$1" in
    start|stop|restart|reload)
        if [ -z "`pg_lsclusters -h`" ]; then
            log_warning_msg 'No PostgreSQL clusters exist; see "man pg_createcluster"'
            exit 0
        fi
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        case "$1" in
            start|restart|reload)
                initctl emit starting-postgresql
            ;;
            stop)
                initctl emit stopping-postgresql
            ;;
        esac
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        for v in $versions; do
            $1 $v || EXIT=$?
        done
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        case "$1" in
            start|restart|reload)
                initctl emit started-postgresql
            ;;
            stop)
                initctl emit stopped-postgresql
            ;;
        esac
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        exit ${EXIT:-0}
        ;;
    status)
        LS=`pg_lsclusters -h`
        # no clusters -> unknown status                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
        [ -n "$LS" ] || exit 4
        echo "$LS" | awk 'BEGIN {rc=0} {if (match($4, "down")) rc=3; printf ("%s/%s (port %s): %s\n", $1, $2, $3, $4)}; END {exit rc}'
        ;;
    force-reload)
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        initctl emit starting-postgresql
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        for v in $versions; do
            reload $v
    done
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        initctl emit started-postgresql
        #### END emit-upstart-event
    ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|status} [version ..]"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

If you want to handle restarting with all the proper signals (by splitting restart into a stop and start commands) you can do:

case "$1" in
    restart)
        ### HANDLING restart as a stop event and then a start event.
        if [ -z "`pg_lsclusters -h`" ]; then
            log_warning_msg 'No PostgreSQL clusters exist; see "man pg_createcluster"'
            exit 0
        fi
        initctl emit stopping-postgresql
        for v in $versions; do
            stop $v || EXIT=$?
        done
        initctl emit stopped-postgresql
        initctl emit starting-postgresql
        for v in $versions; do
            start $v || EXIT=$?
        done
        initctl emit started-postgresql
        ### END HANDLING restart separately
    start|stop|reload)
        if [ -z "`pg_lsclusters -h`" ]; then
            log_warning_msg 'No PostgreSQL clusters exist; see "man pg_createcluster"'
            exit 0
        fi
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        case "$1" in
            start|reload)
                initctl emit starting-postgresql
            ;;
            stop)
                initctl emit stopping-postgresql
            ;;
        esac
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        for v in $versions; do
            $1 $v || EXIT=$?
        done
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        case "$1" in
            start|reload)
                initctl emit started-postgresql
            ;;
            stop)
                initctl emit stopped-postgresql
            ;;
        esac
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        exit ${EXIT:-0}
        ;;
    status)
        LS=`pg_lsclusters -h`
        # no clusters -> unknown status                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
        [ -n "$LS" ] || exit 4
        echo "$LS" | awk 'BEGIN {rc=0} {if (match($4, "down")) rc=3; printf ("%s/%s (port %s): %s\n", $1, $2, $3, $4)}; END {exit rc}'
        ;;
    force-reload)
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        initctl emit starting-postgresql
        #### END emit-upstart-event
        for v in $versions; do
            reload $v
    done
        #### BEGIN emit-upstart-event
        initctl emit started-postgresql
        #### END emit-upstart-event
    ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|status} [version ..]"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

I wrote s a script in which I made a -system-update function, which stops openerp, updates the system by apt-get upgrade, then starts openerp, then restart web-client in case of version < 6.1. Problem is that it requires you use the script to update your server. I didn't use an alias.