Re: Changes to pg_hba.conf not effective until after restart

Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
> Can anyone tell me why on one of our PostgreSQL servers, anytime a
> change is made to the pg_hba.conf file, the PostgreSQL must be restarted
> before the changes take affect? We have other older versions of
> PostgreSQL that changes are effective immediately without restart. Is
> there some setting for this?

It was considered a safety change, so it doesn't read the file as you
are modifying it.

The 7.2 release notes state:

* The "pg_hba.conf" and "pg_ident.conf" configuration is now only
reloaded after receiving a SIGHUP signal, not with each
connection.

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