Re: location of the configuration files

Kevin Brown wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
> > Kevin Brown <kevin(at)sysexperts(dot)com> writes:
> > > I agree with your assessment for the most part, except for PGDATA.
> > > There's no good reason I can think of for the postmaster to look at
> > > it.
> >
> > The other side of that coin is, what's the good reason to remove it?
> > There's a long way between "I don't want my setup to depend on PGDATA"
> > and "I don't think your setup should be allowed to depend on PGDATA".
> > If you don't want to use it, then don't use it. Why do you need to
> > tell me how I'm allowed to run my installation?
>
> I'm not talking about getting rid of ALL dependency on PGDATA in our
> entire distribution, only postmaster's.
>
> Recall that the main purpose of making any of these changes at all is
> to make life easier for the guys who have to manage the systems that
> will be running PostgreSQL. Agreed?
>
> So: imagine you're the newly-hired DBA and your boss points you to the
> system and says "administrate the database on that". You go over to
> the computer and start looking around.
>
> You do a "ps" and see a postmaster process running. You know that
> it's the process that is listening for connections. The "ps" listing
> only says "/usr/bin/postmaster". No arguments to clue you in,
> nothing. Where do you look to figure out where the data is? How do
> you figure out what port it's listening on?

If you want ps to display the data dir, you should use -D. Remember, it
is mostly important for multiple postmaster, so if you are doing that,
just use -D, but don't prevent single-postmaster folks from using
PGDATA.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073