Re: pg_service.conf

On Sun, 2006-02-19 at 10:00 -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 08:05:48AM -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
> >> Like I said, in this thread of posts, yes there are ways of doing this,
> >> and I've been doing it for years. It is just one of the rough eges that
> >> I
> >> think could be smoother.
> >>
> >> (in php)
> >> pg_connect("dbname=geo host=dbserver");
> >>
> >> Could connect and query the dbserver, if the db is not on it, connect to
> >> a
> >> database of known servers, find geo, and use that information to
> >> connect.
> >> It sounds like a simple thing, for sure, but to be useful, there needs
> >> to
> >> be buy in from the group otherwise it is just some esoteric hack.
> >
> > It turns out what you like actually exists, lookup the "service"
> > parameter in the connectdb string. It will read the values for the
> > server, port, etc from a pg_service.conf file.
> >
> > There is an example in the tree but it looks something like the following:
> >
> > [servicename]
> > dbname=blah
> > user=blah
> > pass=blah
> >
> > So all you need to specify is "service=servicename" and it will grab
> > the parameters. This allows you to change the connection without
> > changeing the code.
> >
>
> This is a great feature!!

Yes, it is, but there is a distinct difference between what you asked
for and what have been described as solutions (good though they are).

Both services and pg_service.conf are client-side solutions. So if you
have 20,000 clients to worry about you have some problems. What was
proposed was a central naming service (described as a database of known
servers) that would allow a server-side name to service mapping.

A server-side (i.e. centrally managed) name server seems like an
improvement over the client-side solutions described, IMHO, but I'd
leave it to others to describe how that might work. (e.g. DNS is a
better solution than multiple distributed /etc/hosts files).

Best Regards, Simon Riggs