Re: CI slowdown due to PG_TEST_INITDB_EXTRA_OPTS

On Tue, 21 Jul 2026 at 02:56, Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 2026-07-20 23:47:16 +0200, Jelte Fennema-Nio wrote:
> > On Sat, 18 Jul 2026 at 20:48, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> > > It looks like any one job mostly uses the same value of
> > > PG_TEST_INITDB_EXTRA_OPTS. Could we record what was used to set up
> > > the template, and allow using it if that matches?
>
> That seems like a somewhat complicated mechanism. But mainly I feel like it's
> a workaround around the config-customization-via-env-var having to go through
> exactly one file. None of the uses of PG_TEST_INITDB_EXTRA_OPTS in CI actually
> needs it to be an initdb option, it's just a way to set configuration options
> for the server via an environment variable.
>
> I wonder if the best thing would be to add PG_TEST_SERVER_POSTGRES_OPTS or
> such, which Cluster.pm and regress.c would add to postgresql.conf.

I don't think it's that complicated. But I'd be fine with
PG_TEST_SERVER_POSTGRES_OPTS as well. That has the downside that it
won't work for actual initdb options, but at least CI doesn't use that
(for now). Some buildfarm members might though.