Re: recovery.conf location

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Jaime Casanova <jaime(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
>> On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 6:29 PM, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 6:56 AM, Thom Brown <thom(at)linux(dot)com> wrote:
>>>> I noticed that there's no way to specify the location of recovery.conf
>>>> in postgresql.conf.
>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> That parameter would be useful when user makes multiple standbys see
>>> the same recovery.conf located in NFS or elsewhere.
>
>> Maybe i'm missing something but this would be a problem if we put a
>> trigger file and the recovery.conf gets renamed to recovery.done, no?
>
> Yeah.  The original design for recovery.conf envisioned that it has only
> a short lifespan while you're doing an archive recovery.  Putting
> parameters for slave operation into it has contorted things beyond
> recognition.  I think we really need to take two steps back and
> reconsider the whole "parameters" versus "status" distinction there.

Perhaps we should consider folding recovery.conf into postgresql.conf.

> This is pretty tightly tied to the ongoing argument about where to keep
> parameters for synchronous replication, too.

The thing about the parameters for synchronous replication that is a
little different is that you need a whole set of parameters *for each
standby*. There's not a terribly clean way to handle that in
postgresql.conf as it exists today, but getting any agreement on
non-trivial changes to postgresql.conf has proven to be next to
impossible, despite the fact that AFAICT approximately no one is happy
with the status quo.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise Postgres Company