The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:
Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/app-initdb.html
Description:
Hi all,
During troubleshooting with a customer we found that it might help to know
that initdb will create a symbolic link from data/pg_wal to the custom
directory with the option --waldir.
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-initdb.html
For instance:
This option specifies the directory where the write-ahead log should be
stored. A symbolic link is created from pg_wal in the main data directory to
the specified location.
(Like in this documentation https://pgpedia.info/p/pg_wal.html, but there is
a typo or missing word in the initdb section: "A symbolic link from pg_wal
in the main data directory to the specified location.")
And maybe also here a hint, that moving the pg_wal directory to another
location and creating a symbolic is what initdb --waldir does.
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/wal-internals.html
For instance:
It is advantageous if the WAL is located on a different disk from the main
database files. This can be achieved by moving the pg_wal directory to
another location (while the server is shut down, of course) and creating a
symbolic link from the original location in the main data directory to the
new location. This is also what the --waldir initdb option does.
Thank you very much and kind regards
Theo
