Thread
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initdb -t trashes the entire database system
PostgreSQL Bugs List <pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org> — 2000-08-29T19:06:51Z
toby cabot (toby@caboteria.org) reports a bug with a severity of 1 The lower the number the more severe it is. Short Description initdb -t trashes the entire database system Long Description Hi, PostgreSQL is very cool, kudos to all who have worked hard to make it so! initdb is pretty dangerous, though; it deleted my $PGDATA directory. I had a problem with my pgsql server (wouldn't start - something about log file corruption) so I was looking around in the docs for some way to truncate the log file (since the server was pretty quiet when it was shut down). Anyway, I found "initdb -t" which looked like just the ticket, especially as the docs say "You can't destroy anything by running initdb with the --template option." On running initdb I got: [postgres@tiny pgsql]$ initdb -t Updating template1 database only. This database system will be initialized with username "postgres". This user will own all the data files and must also own the server process. Creating template database in /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/template1 FATAL 2: BootStrapXLOG failed to create control file (/usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_control): 17 FATAL 2: BootStrapXLOG failed to create control file (/usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_control): 17 /usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb: line 443: 7462 Broken pipe cat "$TEMPLATE" 7463 | sed -e "s/PGUID/$POSTGRES_SUPERUSERID/g" 7464 Done(2) | "$PGPATH"/postgres $FIRSTRUN template1 initdb failed. Removing /usr/local/pgsql/data. Removing temp file /tmp/initdb.7446. [postgres@tiny pgsql]$ and I realize with some shock that initdb has just deleted my $PGDATA directory. It does this because it tries to clean up after itself in case of errors. My feeling is that things are pretty much in an undefined state after an error has occurred so the prudent thing to do is give the user as much info as possible and then bail out. OTOH, I don't want to rock the boat so here's a patch to initdb that makes -n implicit in -t: --- bin/initdb.orig Fri Aug 11 22:12:10 2000 +++ bin/initdb Fri Aug 11 22:33:59 2000 @@ -157,6 +157,7 @@ ;; --template|-t) template_only=1 + noclean=1 # don't trash existing data dir echo "Updating template1 database only." ;; # The sysid of the database superuser. Can be freely changed. With this patch it still fails but in a more graceful way. If anyone has any insight into why it -t fails that would be much appreciated, too. Regards, Toby Cabot Sample Code No file was uploaded with this report