Re: initdb - creating clusters

Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>

From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
To: gazzatav@gmail.com, pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2020-07-10T06:51:22Z
Lists: pgsql-docs

Attachments

On Thu, 2020-07-09 at 15:25 +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> I'm searching for what a cluster is and how to create one.  The
> documentation tells me to use initdb -D path/to/cluster.  I am told that
> this is installed when I installed postgresql.  I try to run it with no
> success.  Searching for an answer I find that I'm supposed to use
> pg_createcluster because initdb is version dependent and not made
> executable.  It seems like there is an omission here as the documentation on
> this page also mentions pg_ctl which my system (Ubuntu 18.04) knows nothing
> about using the 'which' command.  I can imagine that someone might argue
> that this is system dependent - I don't know whether that is true or not.  I
> have generally found the documentation excellent and certainly not inward
> looking.  For instance the documentation on replication strategies includes
> proprietary solutions.
> 
> I would suggest that you include a paragraph stating that various operating
> systems use other commands to avoid version conflict and suggest the reader
> search for '<user-system> pg_ctl'.  I can understand why you might not want
> to link to external sites in your documentation.  (While writing this I have
> searched to make sure I'm not writing rubbish and already understand that
> pg_createcluster is a Debian solution/variant.)

Something like the attached?

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

Commits

  1. Doc: mention packager-supplied tools for server start/stop, initdb, etc.