Re: Question about "ident_file" in postgres.conf

On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Tianyin Xu <tixu(at)cs(dot)ucsd(dot)edu> wrote:
>>
>> 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".
>
>
> This is definitely a known problem. It's actually on the TODO list already,
> just not phrased in a way that makes it likely to be found.
>
> It should be treated the same way as the hba_file. So sure, please do
> provide a patch for that if you can.

A patch for this is already committed for 9.3.

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=889

Cheers,

Jeff