Systemd support (was:Re: Please say it isn't so)

On 12/07/17 05:00, Steve Litt wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Please tell me this is a mistake:
>
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Systemd
>
> Why a database system should care about how processes get started is
> beyond me. Systemd is an entangled mess that every year subsumes more
> and more of the operating system, in a very non-cooperative way.
>
> There are almost ten init systems. In every one of those init systems,
> one can run a process supervisor, such as runit or s6 or
> daemontools-encore, completely capable of starting the postgres server.
>
> Every year, systemd further hinders interoperability, further erodes
> interchangeability of parts, and continues to address problems with
> WONTFIX. In the long run, you do your users no favor by including
> init-system specific code in Postgres or its makefiles. If systemd
> can't correctly start Postgres, I guarantee you that s6 or runit,
> running on top of systemd, can.
>
> Postgres doesn't care which language makes a query to it. Why
> should Postgres care which init system started it? I hope you can free
> Postgres of init-specific code, and if for some reason you can't do
> that, at least don't recommend init-specific code.

OTOH since systemd is what's being supported by a significant number of
distributions it makes sense to at least try to work robustly with it.

While my preference would have been to have made such a change at a
major version transition, the reality is that database systems are
competitive, and not keeping up with the underlying platform would have
been very much to PostgreSQL's disadvantage,

OP: Please note that you do yourself no favours at all by posting a
subject line which could very easily be misinterpreted as spam.

--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]