Re: [Pgsqlrpms-hackers] Safer auto-initdb for RPM init - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Lamar Owen
Subject Re: [Pgsqlrpms-hackers] Safer auto-initdb for RPM init
Date
Msg-id 200609091557.15289.lowen@pari.edu
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: [Pgsqlrpms-hackers] Safer auto-initdb for RPM init  ("Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net>)
Responses Re: [Pgsqlrpms-hackers] Safer auto-initdb for RPM init
List pgsql-hackers
On Saturday 26 August 2006 22:08, Matthew T. O'Connor wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Matthew T. O'Connor wrote:
> >> script.  If we installed the datadir during the RPM install, it would
> >> still be newbie friendly and would removed initdb from start script
> >> solving that problem.
> >  initdb will not overwrite an existing installation.

> Poorly chosen words.  I meant, the problem where the start script will
> create a new data dir when it doesn't see that one exists even though
> one actually does exist it's just not available at the moment.  Either
> way, if the start scripts never created a data dir, then there is no
> problem.

If a prebuilt datadir tree were available, it would make it even easier for 
people to overwrite their existing data, as RPM does not check 
non-RPM-managed files prior to overwriting them.

This was in fact done several years ago by Red Hat, and was speedily removed.

I understand the needs from both angles; so I'll ask just a simple question: 
which is worse, annoying all the newbies who just want to get started 
quickly, or annoying the small number of people who NFS mount their datadirs?  
(I personally wouldn't in a million years trust NFS for ACID compliance; 
maybe iSCSI, but NFS?!?!).

The behavior, in my opinion, should be configurable and ON by default.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu


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