From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <greg@turnstep.com>
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Overhauling GUCS
In-Reply-To: <48420842.6020802@commandprompt.com>
Date: Sun,  1 Jun 2008 21:13:05 -0000
Message-ID: <63029b9d3ba7ab56c1fc11e42619eaf1@biglumber.com>


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160


Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> We already have include directives, and have had since 8.2.

Heh, thanks - which proves how useless they are to me. :)

Joshua Drake wrote:

> I kind of agree with this but actually think we should have the bare
> minimum comments in the file. Why? Because our documentation links are
> static. Each setting should have the URL to the full documentation on a
> particular setting.

Ugh, why so much context switching? Put the docs next to the setting. URLs
are nice but not necessary. If you are arguing for minimum comments in
conf files, please make a patch for pg_hba.conf ;)

>> * Create a tool, or at least a best practices, for controlling and tracking
>> changes to the file.

> This I disagree with. There are plenty of tools to handle this should
> someone really want to. SVN, CVS, parrot, etc... Let systems management
> be the domain of systems management.

Well, perhaps just a note in the docs at least that one might want to put
postgresql.conf in version control. I've seen people not doing so more often
than you would think. Perhaps because they are DBAs and not sysadmins? I also
meant a tool to do things like verify that the changes are valid, as someone
else mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

>> * It might be nice to mention other ways to reload the file, such as
>> 'service postgresql reload', or whatever Windows uses.

> I think a url to the docs is a better idea here.

Good point. Maybe a sort of "DBA basics" page in the docs is warranted for
things like this.

>> * Since the executable is now named "postgres" (thank goodness we got
>> rid of "postmaster"), the file should be named 'postgres.conf'. This would
>> also be a way to quickly distinguish 'old' vs 'new' style conf files if
>> we end up making major changes to it.

> It was never postmaster.conf (that I can recall). I don't see the issue
> here. Consider apache... It isn't apache.conf.

Not saying it ever was postmaster.conf: just that I'm glad we finally
changed the name. As for the Apache project, the httpd executable reads the
httpd.conf file. Hence, one might expect the postgres executable to read a
postgres.conf file.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
End Point Corporation
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200806011656
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iEYEAREDAAYFAkhDEJMACgkQvJuQZxSWSsgeogCfT0g69NDoxyWGiWmDcB3PxH8h
wJ8AnjzssA7aIk0rBdJzL+bB5vSQSeBV
=lgZG
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----