On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Tianyin Xu <tixu@cs.ucsd.edu> wrote: >> >> Hi, all, >> >> I have a question regarding the "ident_file" configuration entry. >> >> Why the server refused to start without specifying the "ident_file", but >> it never cares whether the given "ident_file" is valid or not? In other >> word, a misconfigured non-existent path for "ident_file" can also start the >> server with a background message. >> >> This does not make too much sense to me. I think the system behavior >> should be opposite. If the user didn't specify the "ident_file", the pg >> server should ignore. But if the user specifies one and that one is not >> valid, the user should stop because it clearly means the path is >> misconfigured. >> >> Is there any concern here? Otherwise I would suggest and provide a patch >> to check the validity of the "ident_file" like what pg is doing for >> "data_directory" and "hba_file". > > > This is definitely a known problem. It's actually on the TODO list already, > just not phrased in a way that makes it likely to be found. > > It should be treated the same way as the hba_file. So sure, please do > provide a patch for that if you can.