Re: location of the configuration files

Tom Lane wrote:

>mlw <pgsql(at)mohawksoft(dot)com> writes:
>
>
>>The idea that a, more or less, arbitrary data location determines the
>>database configuration is wrong. It should be obvious to any
>>administrator that a configuration file location which controls the
>>server is the "right" way to do it.
>>
>>
>
>I guess I'm just dense, but I entirely fail to see why this is the One
>True Way To Do It. What you seem to be proposing (ignoring
>syntactic-sugar issues) is that we replace "postmaster -D
>/some/data/dir" by "postmaster -config /some/config/file". I am not
>seeing the nature of the improvement. It looks to me like the sysadmin
>must now grant the Postgres DBA write access on *two* directories, viz
>/some/config/ and /wherever/the/data/directory/is. How is that better
>than granting write access on one directory? Given that we can't manage
>to standardize the data directory location across multiple Unixen, how
>is it that we will be more successful at standardizing a config file
>location?
>
>All I see here is an arbitrary break with our past practice. I do not
>see any net improvement.
>
>
>
There is a pretty well understood convention that a configuration file
will be located in some standard location depending on your distro.
Would you disagree with that?

There is also a convention that most servers are configured by a
configuration file, located in a central location. Look at sendmail,
named,, et al.

Here is the test, configure a server, with sendmail, named, apache, and
PostgreSQL. Tell me which of these systems doesn't configure right.