Re: pg_config, pg_service.conf, postgresql.conf ....

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Mark Kirkwood wrote:
>
>>>What if we add an option to initdb to allow the user to specify the name
>>>and location of the postgresql.conf file?
>>
>>That is certainly a way to approach it, I see the tough bit being the
>>parsing of postgresql.conf to figure out which parts of the global
>>included file to ignore (i.e the stuff for the *other* clusters).
>>
>>Would this work for the situation where you have older clusters on the
>>box (versions that don't understand 'include')?
>>
>>Additionally this would need to tackle start|stop etc for all clusters...
>
>
> I guess I am thinking we should move in a direction where all the
> postgresql.conf files can be put in a single directory and pg_ctl would
> know how to process multiple config files,

Ok - that certainly makes a lot of sense. I do see a need to be able to
handle older versions tho (I'm guessing that this could probably be made
to work as long as a *newer* pg_ctl parsing the config files). At first
sight this looks more complicated to implement (this not necessarily
being a major objection in this audience :-))

> rather than create a central
> file with conflicts with postgresql.conf.
>

With respect to this point, the minimal proposal is a register of
instance binary homes and data directories (plus a name/alias to identify):

ALIAS PGHOME PGDATA

I don't believe this conflicts with any postgresql.conf - it is merely a
'signpost' to where they are. (Now Mark W and myself were suggesting
having PORT and may OPTS there too, but see prev mail about that - I'm
ok about losing these).

Cheers

Mark