Re: BUG #14814: Documentation errors for OpenBSD

Thanks for the response, Tom. I am cc’ing the OpenBSD port maintainer here just for visibility.

Port maintainer:

I am not a developer or even a DBA. I am just an end user learning to set up PostGresql on OpenBSD 6.1. After installing the package using pkg_add, I began to delve into the documentation at postgresql.org.

I got to this section on starting the server:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/server-start.html

The documentation did not match my experience (postgresql did not start) which prompted me to file a postgresql bug report #14814 on the documentation.

Specifically, the instructions on what to put in rc.local for openbsd in the documentation says this:

if [ -x /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -a -x /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres ]; then
su -l postgres -c '/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl start -s -l /var/postgresql/log -D /usr/local/pgsql/data'
echo -n ' postgresql'
fi

However, after taking the time to troubleshoot: This is what winds up working:

if [ -x /usr/local/bin/pg_ctl -a -x /usr/local/bin/postgres ]; then
su -l _postgresql -c '/usr/local/bin/pg_ctl start -s -l /var/postgresql/logfile -D /var/postgresql/data'
echo -n ' postgresql'
fi

Knowing that it is openbsd policy to have service names begin with an _ (underscore) and believing that the path listed to the executable does not seem to match the hier man page on openbsd, I thought this might be a documentation bug.

I want to save other users the time I spent figuring this out which is what brought me here. In Tom’s response to me below, he believes this to be a port issue.

Thanks for looking into this!

— Paul.

> On Sep 13, 2017, at 8:54 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> pfcovello(at)gmail(dot)com writes:
>> In section 18.3. Starting the Database Server there are instructions for
>> starting the server on OpenBSD:
>> ...
>> However, there are several problems with this instruction.
>
> You seem to want us to adjust the community documentation to match
> someone's packaging of Postgres. We can't really track every random
> decision that packagers make; and if we tried, then the documentation
> would be inaccurate for installations built directly from source.
>
> Really, best practice for a packager who is modifying the default
> configuration like this is to also modify the copy of the documentation
> they ship, or at least make it very plain in a README file how their
> installation differs from the out-of-the-box defaults.
>
> In short, I think you've got a complaint for your packager here,
> not one for the PG community.
>
> regards, tom lane