Re: [HACKERS] Some items for the TODO list

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Things I'd like to see get in there before 6.4:
>
> 1. On HPUX, the new no-exec method of starting the backend means that
> all the backends claim to be "postmaster"; there's no way to tell 'em
> apart via ps(1). There is some code in postgres.c that tries to update
> the process title information by tweaking the original argv[] array, but
> that just plain doesn't work under HPUX, nor under quite a few other
> Unix variants. I'm finding out that not being able to tell which
> process is which is a real pain in the neck; I don't think it will be
> acceptable for production use. I think we are going to have to bite the
> bullet and borrow the process-title-setting code from sendmail --- I
> know it's ugly, but it *works* on many many Unixes.

One way to tell them apart is to see which of them is the parent of
the rest. Not as nice as being able to set the title, but it might be
a serviceable workaround in some cases.

Ocie