On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 10:32 PM Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> wrote:
> Thinking about this more, it's not clear to me if this would be in
> scope for pg_upgrade or not. If pg_upgrade is fixing up the new cluster
> rather than checking for compatibility, why doesn't it just take over
> and do the initdb for the new cluster itself? That would be less
> confusing for users, and avoid some weirdness (like, if you drop the
> database "postgres" on the original, why does it reappear after an
> upgrade?).
>
> Someone might want to do something interesting to the new cluster
> before the upgrade, but it's not clear from the docs what would be both
> useful and safe.
I agree with all of this. I think it would be fantastic if pg_upgrade
did the initdb itself. It would be simple to make this optional
behavior, too: if the destination directory does not exist or is
empty, initdb into it, otherwise skip that. That might be too
automagical, so we could add add a --no-initdb option. If not
specified, the destination directory must either not exist or be
empty; else it must exist and look like a data directory.
I completely concur with the idea that doing something with the new
cluster before the upgrade is weird, and I don't think we should
encourage people to do it. Nevertheless, as the threads to which
Justin linked probably say, I'm not sure that it's a good idea to
completely slam the door shut on that option. If we did want to move
in that direction, though, having pg_upgrade do the initdb would be an
excellent first step. We could at some later time decide to remove the
--no-initdb option; or maybe we'll decide that it's good to keep it
for emergencies, which is my present bias. In any event, the resulting
system would be more usable and less error-prone than what we have
today.
--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
