Re: [BUGS] BUG #14814: Documentation errors for OpenBSD

Thanks for the response, Tom.  I am cc’ing the OpenBSD port maintainer here just for visibility.

Port maintainer:

I am not a developer or even a DBA.  I am just an end user learning to set up PostGresql on OpenBSD 6.1.  After
installingthe package using pkg_add, I began to delve into the documentation at postgresql.org. 

I got to this section on starting the server:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/server-start.html


The documentation did not match my experience (postgresql did not start) which prompted me to file a postgresql bug
report#14814 on the documentation. 

Specifically, the instructions on what to put in rc.local for openbsd in the documentation says this:

if [ -x /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -a -x /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres ]; then   su -l postgres -c
'/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctlstart -s -l /var/postgresql/log -D /usr/local/pgsql/data'   echo -n ' postgresql' 
fi

However, after taking the time to troubleshoot:  This is what winds up working:

if [ -x /usr/local/bin/pg_ctl -a -x /usr/local/bin/postgres ]; then   su -l _postgresql -c '/usr/local/bin/pg_ctl start
-s-l /var/postgresql/logfile -D /var/postgresql/data'   echo -n ' postgresql' 
fi

Knowing that it is openbsd policy to have service names begin with an _ (underscore) and believing that the path listed
tothe executable does not seem to match the hier man page on openbsd, I thought this might be a documentation bug. 

I want to save other users the time I spent figuring this out which is what brought me here.  In Tom’s response to me
below,he believes this to be a port issue. 

Thanks for looking into this!

— Paul.

> On Sep 13, 2017, at 8:54 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>
> pfcovello@gmail.com writes:
>> In section 18.3. Starting the Database Server there are instructions for
>> starting the server on OpenBSD:
>> ...
>> However, there are several problems with this instruction.
>
> You seem to want us to adjust the community documentation to match
> someone's packaging of Postgres.  We can't really track every random
> decision that packagers make; and if we tried, then the documentation
> would be inaccurate for installations built directly from source.
>
> Really, best practice for a packager who is modifying the default
> configuration like this is to also modify the copy of the documentation
> they ship, or at least make it very plain in a README file how their
> installation differs from the out-of-the-box defaults.
>
> In short, I think you've got a complaint for your packager here,
> not one for the PG community.
>
>             regards, tom lane



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