Re: initdb start server recommendation

On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 03:36:07PM -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > BTW, why are we advocating postgres binary use at all? AFAICS the main
> > postgres (or postmaster) uses are (i) startup script (which also
> > advocate for 'pg_ctl -w') and (ii) disaster/debugging purposes. None of
> > those use cases are intended for general users. Let's make it simple and
> > drop 'postgres' line.
>
> 1. I like copying and pasting the "postgres" line during development.
> That's not a reason to keep it, necessarily.
>
> 2. If you're saying, most people shouldn't run postgres directly, then
> most people also shouldn't run initdb directly. This message will
> mainly be seen either by developers or testers or tutorial users or
> do-it-yourselfers. In which case knowing the functionality of the
> postgres program is valid.
>
> 3. It's not clear that pg_ctl is necessarily the best way to start the
> server. With things like systemd, launchd, supervisord that like to
> manage the daemons directly, using postgres directly might be the
> preferable choice.

Well, my initial suggestion was just to recommend pg_ctl first, rather
than remove the postgres binary line, so I assume you are fine with
doing that.

I think we should be looking at who is running initdb manually, then
decide what is the best recommendation. While developers or testers are
certainly running initdb directly, I think our largest group of
initdb-directly users are those installing multiple clusters on a single
server.

Frankly, I am not sure how they are starting the server as the
/etc/init.d startup files don't handle multiple clusters well, and I
have never seen instructions on how multi-cluster users are supposed to
set things up. I assume they are copying the existing init.d file with
a new name and modifying PGDATA and maybe the port number, then doing
'service ... start' or something like that. I doubt we want initdb to
recommend that.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ Everyone has their own god. +