Re: location of the configuration files

On 13 Feb 2003, Martin Coxall wrote:

>
> > Well, to the extent that you're serious, you understand that
> > a lot of people feel that /usr/local should be reserved for
> > stuff that's installed by the local sysadmin, and your
> > vendor/distro isn't supposed to be messing with it.
> >
> > Which means if the the vendor installed Postgresql (say, the
> > Red Hat Database) you'd expect config files to be in /etc.
> > If the postgresql is compiled from source by local admin,
> > you might look somewhere in /usr/local.
>
> Indeed. For better or worse, there is a Filesystem Hierarcy Standard,
> and most of the important Linux distros, BSDs and some legacy Unixen
> stick to it, so so should we.
>
> Configuration files should be in /etc/postgresql/, or at the very least
> symlinked from there.

So, how do we handle things like installing three or four versions at the
same time. This isn't the same thing as /etc/fstab. While we only would
likely need to have one fstab or whatever, with postgresql, it's not
unreasonable to want to intall more than one copy or version for various
reason.

Generally things that live in /etc are owned and operated by the OS.
Postgresql, by it's definition is a userspace program, not an OS owned
one.

I've found having a $PGDATA var where EVERYTHING lives to be a huge
advantage when you need to run a half dozen instances of pgsql under
different accounts or for different versions on the same box.

Now, if we could do it like X, where the base stuff is all in the
/etc/X11R6 directory, but your own personal config lives in your home
directory, then we're right as rain. but what parts of postgresql would
always be common to all flavors that might need to be run at the same
time? Not much.