Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters (RE: Proposal for Allow postgresql.conf values to be changed via SQL [review])

* Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote:
> Come to think of it, maybe part of the reason we're having such a hard
> time getting to consensus is that people are conflating the "snippet"
> part with the "writable" part?  I mean, if you are thinking you want
> system-management tools to be able to drop in configuration fragments as
> separate files, there's a case to be made for a conf.d subdirectory that
> lives somewhere that the postmaster can't necessarily write.  We just
> mustn't confuse that with support for ALTER SYSTEM SET.  I strongly
> believe that ALTER SYSTEM SET must not be designed to write anywhere
> outside $PGDATA.

Agreed.  To continue that thought, I find it *very* unlikely that a
given environment would use *both* a tool like puppet to manage the
files in their conf.d *and* have people using ALTER SYSTEM SET.  You're
going to do one or the other, almost certainly; not the least of which
is because those are very likely two different teams and only one of
them is going to be responsible for the PG system config.
Thanks,
    Stephen