Question about "ident_file" in postgres.conf

Hi, all,

I have a question regarding the "ident_file" configuration entry.

Why the server refused to start without specifying the "ident_file", but it
never cares whether the given "ident_file" is valid or not? In other word,
a misconfigured non-existent path for "ident_file" can also start the
server with a background message.

This does not make too much sense to me. I think the system behavior should
be opposite. If the user didn't specify the "ident_file", the pg server
should ignore. But if the user specifies one and that one is not valid, the
user should stop because it clearly means the path is misconfigured.

Is there any concern here? Otherwise I would suggest and provide a patch to
check the validity of the "ident_file" like what pg is doing for
"data_directory" and "hba_file".

Thanks a lot!
Tianyin

--
Tianyin XU,
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~tixu/