Re: Permanent settings

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 12:02 AM, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I think we're failing to discuss the primary use-case for this, which
> is one reason why the solutions aren't obvious.
>
> And that use case is: multi-server management.

...and third-party management solutions.

> PostgreSQL is *easy* to manage on one server. For a single server, the
> existing text file editor GUIs are clunky but good enough.
[...]

I tried to ask myself -- what other similar systems do I know and what
do they give me.

Well, I know Oracle does have a concept of database managed
configuration (a SPFILE),
and it is preferred set up. If you are using SPFILE, you can issue:

ALTER SYSTEM SET foo = 'bar' [ COMMENT = 'comment' ] SCOPE=SPFILE (or
MEMORY or BOTH).

...SPFILE means changes take place upon next restart, MEMORY -- they
are temporary (though
global for the system).

At any moment you can switch from one form to the other (CREATE PFILE
FROM SPFILE)
or vice versa. The idea is that human can edit PFILE, and that SPFILE
is database-only
(and database can store some extra hints there, if it wishes).

OK, so what does it give Oracle? The management solutions use it a
lot. You can easily change
parameters from them. Combined with monitoring this gives "full
service" solutions, say a PostgreSQL
could diisplay a bgwriter statistics, suggest changes to the current
settings, and a "one click away"
solution to try them out.

Would I like PostgreSQL to have such an option? Yes, having used it
on Oracle, I think
such an ability is nothing but beneficial (if done right).

Regards,
Dawid

PS: And I think postgres.conf as it is today is one of the nicest
application-provided configuration files. :)