Re: pg_upgrade - add config directory setting

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 04:13:41PM -0700, Steve Crawford wrote:
> It would perhaps be useful to add optional --old-confdir and
> --new-confdir parameters to pg_upgrade. If these parameters are absent
> then pg_upgrade would work as it does now and assume that the config
> files are in the datadir.
>
> The reason for this suggestion is that packages for Ubuntu (and I
> suppose Debian and possibly others) place the config files in a
> different directory than the data files.
>
> The Ubuntu packaging, for example, puts all the configuration files in
> /etc/postgresql/VERSION/main/.
>
> If I set the data-directories to /var/lib/postgresql/VERSION/main then
> pg_upgrade complains about missing config files.
>
> If I set the data directories to /etc/postgresql/VERSION/main/ then
> pg_upgrade complains that the "base" subdirectory is missing.
>
> Temporarily symlinking postgresql.conf and pg_hba.conf from the config
> directory to the data directory allowed the upgrade to run successfully
> but is a bit more kludgey and non-obvious.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve

I was just about to submit this suggestion. We do the same on Gentoo, as a
default anyway. (Users can pick their own locations for the configuration files
and data directories.) It would simplify the upgrade process by eliminating two
to four steps. (Symlink/copy configuration files in /etc/postgresql-${SLOT}
to /var/lib/postgresql-${SLOT}, same to $version++, pg_upgrade, remove symlinks.)

--
Mr. Aaron W. Swenson
Pseudonym: TitanOfOld
Gentoo Developer