Re: Exposing an installation's default value of unix_socket_directory

Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> > On tor, 2010-10-21 at 16:59 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> Actually, the only reason this is even up for discussion is that
> >> there's
> >> no configure option to set DEFAULT_PGSOCKET_DIR. If there were, and
> >> debian were using it, then pg_config --configure would tell what I
> >> wish
> >> to know. I thought for a bit about proposing we add such an option,
> >> but given the current state of play it might be more misleading than
> >> helpful: as long as distros are accustomed to changing this setting
> >> via
> >> a patch, you couldn't trust pg_config --configure to tell you what a
> >> given installation actually has compiled into it.
>
> > Presumably, if a configure option were added, they couldn't change it
> > via patch anymore.
>
> Hm, you're right: we'd remove the pg_config_manual.h entry, so the
> existing patches would stop working, and presumably maintainers would
> figure out that they ought to use the configure switch instead. So
> that argument holds little water.
>
> > Btw., a configure option for this was rejected years ago to discourage
> > people from actually changing the default.
>
> Yeah, I remember that discussion now that you mention it. It still
> seems like a good policy ... but given that some popular packages are
> changing the default whether we think it's a good idea or not, maybe
> it's better to acknowledge that reality. We could still have some
> text in the manual pointing out the compatibility hazards of using
> the switch, I guess.

Might have been a nice change for 9.0. :-(

I don't think there is a great amount of defense that it should be in
/tmp except for backward compatibility, and for non-root installs. For
a package installer, I think moving it out of temp makes sense, hence a
configure flag.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +