Horton

Re: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters (RE: Proposal for Allow postgresql.conf values to be changed via SQL [review])

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

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From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>
Cc: Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>, "'Andres Freund'" <andres@2ndquadrant.com>, "'Greg Stark'" <stark@mit.edu>, "'Alvaro Herrera'" <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>, "'Fujii Masao'" <masao.fujii@gmail.com>, "'Robert Haas'" <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, "'Dimitri Fontaine'" <dimitri@2ndquadrant.fr>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, "'Josh Berkus'" <josh@agliodbs.com>
Date: 2013-08-02T12:45:56Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:
> Perhaps having the file be a heap file instead of anything a sysadmin
> can be asked to go hack would also make it more clear that this is an
> internal PG file which is to be managed only through PG and stop all
> this arguing about how "oh, they can just fix it by twiddling things in
> $PGDATA" is considered by some to be an acceptable solution.

Whether you think it's acceptable or not, sometimes it's *necessary*.
What if you set a combination of parameters that prevents Postgres from
starting?

Even if we could make config-in-a-catalog work, which I'm very dubious
of, I would think it far too unsafe to use.

We could of course fix that problem by only storing "safe" parameters
in a catalog, but then you lose the supposed appeal of a single-file
solution.

			regards, tom lane