Re: Request for a "force interactive mode" flag (-I) for psql

I haven't seen any replies to this, so I guess you are left with either
hacking psql yourself or getting Cygwin folks to fix it.  Sorry.

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Bill Bartlett wrote:
> Back in 2003 Bruce Momjian proposed adding a flag (-I) to psql to force
> it into "interactive" mode.  (See
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2003-11/msg00013.php for
> the thread.)  The proposal was rejected because there was no proven need
> for it at that time. I'd like to raise this proposal again, since I
> think in our situation, this is the only fix for our problem.
> 
> Our environment is as follows:
> * A large number of PostgreSQL 7.4 servers running on a variety of SuSE
> Linux (9.0 - 9.3) servers
> * A growing number of PostgreSQL 8.0.3 servers running on Windows Server
> 2003 servers. (We are running the native Win32 version of PostgreSQL,
> not the Cygwin version.)
> 
> The servers are all located in remote offices.  Maintenance is done
> remotely via SSH to a "local" bash command prompt where we use the
> command line tools: psql, pg_dump, etc.  On Linux we use the native
> sshd; on Windows we use Cygwin to get bash, sshd, cron, etc.  On Linux
> this works fine; on Windows, however, psql thinks it is not in an
> interactive console so we get no prompts, no line editing, no history,
> very little cursor control, etc. (I see that the missing autocomplete
> feature is a readline issue, but that's a topic for another posting.)
> This makes remote maintenance on the Windows servers much more difficult
> than it otherwise could be.
> 
> The issue appears to be due to isatty() returning false in the Windows
> Cygwin environment.  From other research around the web, it appears that
> if the app is "Cygwin-aware" is knows to override this check (or allow
> manual override) or try to do further testing, but in this case, since
> we are using the native Win32 version of PostgreSQL, psql doesn't do any
> additional testing.
> 
> Also, even in the local console on Windows, running rxvt -- our
> preferred terminal in Windows (since it lets us make our Windows command
> line act just like our Linux command line <grin>) --  causes psql to
> think that there is no terminal. (Our first encounter of this "no
> terminal" problem was in trying to run psql via a local bash shell via
> rxvt, and originally we thought that psql was hanging. Given our
> reliance on psql for remote maintenance, this would have prevented our
> rolling out a Windows version of PostgreSQL. It was only after too much
> time looking at it with some low-level tools that we stumbled across the
> fact that psql was simply silently waiting at a command prompt rather
> than being hung. However, from other posts in these lists [e.g.:
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-patches/2004-07/msg00369.php ] it
> appears that other people also thought psql was hanging when it was run
> from a terminal program, so I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad...)
> 
> Bruce's proposal and suggested code simply added a new "-I" flag to
> force psql into "interactive mode" (by simply setting "pset.notty = 0").
> >From everything I can find (including reading through the Cygwin code,
> ssh and sshd man pages and code, psql code, testing various modes of
> running the sshd service in Windows, changing Windows profile account
> permissions, etc.), adding this flag seems to be the only viable option
> (other than writing a replacement for psql for our Windows servers,
> something I'd prefer to not do). While I can obviously add this patch
> myself and build and maintain a custom version of psql for our own use,
> since there now is a true native version of PostgreSQL for Windows, I
> think we will see a growing list of people supporting mixed environments
> just like ours, and bumping into this exact same problem.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> - Bill
> 
> Bill Bartlett
> meridianEMR, Inc.
> http://www.meridianemr.com
> 
> 
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