Received: from magus.postgresql.org (magus.postgresql.org [87.238.57.229]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A1E0AD7E31 for ; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 13:40:32 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us ([66.207.139.130]) by magus.postgresql.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1SgIWb-0007Gx-W7 for pgsql-www@postgresql.org; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:40:32 +0000 Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q5HGeFIT027202; Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:40:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom Lane To: Dave Page cc: Magnus Hagander , Kevin Grittner , "pgsql-www@postgresql.org" Subject: Re: Some restructuring of the download section In-reply-to: References: <4FDDAA9F0200002500048597@gw.wicourts.gov> Comments: In-reply-to Dave Page message dated "Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:48:51 +0100" Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:40:15 -0400 Message-ID: <27201.1339951215@sss.pgh.pa.us> X-Pg-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) X-Archive-Number: 201206/39 X-Sequence-Number: 20733 Dave Page writes: > On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Magnus Hagander wrote: >> Uh, that part is just incorrect. Several sets of platform packages >> certainly do initdb for you. And AFAIK every single one of them on >> Linux at least do service setup for you. > Hmm, clearly it's been a while since I did a PG installation on Debian > (oddly!), as that does seem to leave the server up and running. I'm > fairly certain it didn't in the past. > RPMs on the other hand, do not. FWIW, Red-Hat-based systems have a strong distro policy against starting servers merely because the package got installed --- the theory is that an "everything" install should not leave the user running a bunch of servers he doesn't know about and maybe hasn't configured securely. I'm a bit surprised to hear that Debian does it differently; although it's possible that they distinguish manual from automatic install scenarios. It's a little bit saner to do an auto service start if you know that the user explicitly requested this specific package. regards, tom lane