Nominatim problem importing planet file

After a gruesome night installing PostgreSQL 9.1, PostGIS 2 and Nominatim 2 on CentOS 6.3 using the instructions at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim/Installation, I am finally at the stage of importing a US planet file.

Problem: In

~/Nominatim/utils

, When I attempt to run

./setup.php --osm-file us-northeast.osm.pbf --all

, the output I get is:


    ["type"]=>
          string(2) "->"
          ["args"]=>
          array(2) {
            [0]=>
            array(9) {
              ["phptype"]=>
              string(5) "pgsql"
              ["dbsyntax"]=>
              string(5) "pgsql"
              ["username"]=>
              string(0) ""
              ["password"]=>
              bool(false)
              ["protocol"]=>
              string(3) "tcp"
              ["hostspec"]=>
              string(0) ""
              ["port"]=>
              bool(false)
              ["socket"]=>
              bool(false)
              ["database"]=>
              string(9) "nominatim"
            }
            [1]=>
            bool(false)
          }
        }
        [5]=>
        array(6) {
          ["file"]=>
          string(35) "/home/myusername/Nominatim/lib/db.php"
          ["line"]=>
          int(7)
          ["function"]=>
          string(7) "connect"
          ["class"]=>
          string(2) "DB"
          ["type"]=>
          string(2) "::"
          ["args"]=>
          array(2) {
            [0]=>
            string(19) "pgsql://@/nominatim"
            [1]=>
            bool(false)
          }
        }
        [6]=>
        array(4) {
          ["file"]=>
          string(40) "/home/myusername/Nominatim/utils/setup.php"
          ["line"]=>
          int(118)
          ["function"]=>
          string(5) "getDB"
          ["args"]=>
          array(0) {
          }
        }
      }
      ["callback"]=>
      NULL
    }
    DB Error: connect failed


and I am thrown back to the command line. I am logged in as a user who has a postgresql role of the same name and is a superuser. I have opened up both incoming and outgoing port *5432 *and is able to connect using this user via Navicat. I checked the postgresql log files a */var/logs/pgsql *but its a blank file. I also tried reinstalling PEAR DB module but that did not help. Under pg_dba.conf, I have placed everyone under trust authentication and is able to get into pgsql command line console without entering any password by typing psql.

Any idea what went wrong? Are there any commands that I need to run before doing the import, like for creating the databases that I’ll be importing into?