Re: Changing the data directory path before the initial configuration of PostgreSQL 10.7.1

Hi,

On Thu, 2020-12-24 at 06:35 -0700, Keith Christian wrote:

> Using Postgres 10.7.1 on Fedora core 28.  Admittedly not the latest
> but am helping a colleague with a production system who needs a
> PostgreSQL instance on this machine.
>
> The default /var/lib/pgsql/data directory needs to go on another
> partition with more space, let's call it /xyz, so the desired data
> path during configuration is /xyz/var/lib/pgsql/data.
>
> Is it possible to edit one of the conf files and replace
> /var/lib/pgsql/data with /xyz/var/lib/pgsql/data before the
> /usr/bin/postgresql-setup --initdb command is run?

The easiest way is moving /var/lib/pgsql/data under /xyz directory
(when the db is not running) and create a symlink in the original
location:

chown postgres: /xyz
su - postgres
mv /var/lib/pgsql/data /xyz/10-data
ln -s /xyz/10-data /var/lib/pgsql/data

Then you can use setup script as usual.

Another alternative is creating a copy of the unit file under
/etc/systemd/system, changing $PGDATA inside that file and run the
setup script. This should be documented on the top of the unit file.

-HTH

Regards,

--
Devrim Gündüz
Open Source Solution Architect, Red Hat Certified Engineer
Twitter: @DevrimGunduz , @DevrimGunduzTR