Re: [PATCH] Add ALTER SYSTEM RELOAD

On 9/24/26 9:29 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Chao Li <li(dot)evan(dot)chao(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>> On Sep 23, 2026, at 17:44, Yuhang Qiu <iamqyh(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>> For configuration parameters that can be reloaded, administrators often need
>>> to perform two steps in succession:
>>> ```sql
>>> ALTER SYSTEM SET work_mem = '64MB';
>>> SELECT pg_reload_conf();
>>> ```
>>>
>>> I propose adding `ALTER SYSTEM RELOAD`, so the sequence can be written as:
>>> ```sql
>>> ALTER SYSTEM SET work_mem = '64MB';
>>> ALTER SYSTEM RELOAD;
>>> ```
>
>> Thanks for the patch. After reading it, I have a concern. pg_reload_conf() relies on normal function privileges, so a super user can grant EXECUTE on it to a non-superuser. With this patch, the two interfaces for doing essentially the same thing would have different privilege models:
>
> I'm pretty down on this proposal even without the privilege question.
> "There's more than one way to do it" isn't a great thing for
> security-relevant operations, and this surely is one.

+1

I do not see how this adds anything worth the increased maintenance
burden. How to reload the config is clearly discoverable in the docs for
ALTER SYSTEM.

Andreas