Re: pg_regress inputdir

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> There is interest among packagers to run the regression tests or other
>> tests after the build. The Red Hat RPMs have shipped a postgresql-test
>> package for years with a hacked-up makefile that will probably overwrite
>> random files that it shouldn't in /usr/lib. So I would rather be in
>> favor of coming up with a solution that would make this work rather than
>> removing the options. The solution would probably be adding another
>> option to place the generated files, but the exact behavior would need
>> to be worked out.

> Hmm. I took a look at the RPM makefiles and patches, and it doesn't
> seem like changing this part of pg_regress would solve anything.

Well, it would be interesting if it were possible for an unprivileged
user to run postgresql-test. That would mean arranging for the tests to
not write anything in the regression source directory, but only in some
user-private directory; ie, keeping the modifiable and non-modifiable
files separate. Which I think is what Peter is getting at above.

However, at least for Red Hat I don't think I could use such a feature
if I had it :-(. You'll note that Makefile.regress has to fool around
with SELinux labeling, which I think isn't possible for any old random
user. That's not something that could be avoided if we had a pg_regress
that was careful about modifiable vs non-modifiable files, because the
restriction is actually enforced against the installed postgresql
binaries.

regards, tom lane