Re: location of the configuration files

Tom Lane wrote:

>mlw <pgsql@mohawksoft.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.