Re: WAL file location

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Thomas Lockhart <lockhart(at)fourpalms(dot)org>
Cc: PostgreSQL Hackers List <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: WAL file location
Date: 2002-07-30 04:08:09
Message-ID: 28821.1028002089@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Thomas Lockhart <lockhart(at)fourpalms(dot)org> writes:
> I've developed patches to be able to specify the location of the WAL
> directory, with the default location being where it is now. The patches
> define a new environment variable PGXLOG (a la PGDATA) and postmaster,
> postgres, initdb and pg_ctl have been taught to recognize a new command
> line switch "-X" a la "-D".

Uh ... if I randomly modify PGXLOG and restart the postmaster, what
happens? Unless you've added code to *move* pg_xlog, this doesn't seem
like a good idea.

More generally, I do not like depending on postmaster environment
variables --- our experience with environment variables for database
locations has been uniformly bad, and so ISTM that extending that
mechanism into pg_xlog is exactly the wrong direction to head.

The current mechanism for moving pg_xlog around is to create a symlink
from $PGDATA/pg_xlog to someplace else. I'd be all in favor of creating
some code to help automate moving pg_xlog that way, but I don't think
introducing an environment variable will improve matters.

> I'm intending to head towards finer control of locations of tables and
> indices next by implementing some notion of named storage area, perhaps
> including the "tablespace" nomenclature though it would not be the same
> thing as in Oracle since it would not be fixed size but more akin to the
> "secondary locations" that we support now for entire databases.

The existing secondary-location mechanism is horrible. Please do not
emulate it...

regards, tom lane

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