Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 12:28:41 -0400
From: Mark Fenbers <Mark.Fenbers@noaa.gov>
Subject: Does PG have a database
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Message-id: <4471E6B9.9080002@noaa.gov>
Organization: DOC/NOAA/NWS/OHRFC
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I have working PostgreSQL databases on 3 of my ~30 Linux boxes.  I want 
my software to be able to determine which of my 30 boxes have functional 
databases on them.  Since Pg is part of the baseline distro, merely 
checking for the existence of an executable doesn't solve my problem.

I tried looping through my list of hosts and running the command:
    psql -h $host --list
but this fails on a box with a database with the same error code as on a 
box that doesn't have a database, if my PGUSER isn't set and my login ID 
is not the username of the database.  The PGUSER setting might differ 
for each host, so specifying this in the software is not practical.

Bottom line:  What trick can I use to determine whether a box has a 
living, breathing Pg database if I don't know the DB owner? 

Mark