On 15 June 2013 16:18, Craig Ringer <craig@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> On 06/15/2013 02:08 PM, Brendan Jurd wrote:
>> On 15 June 2013 14:43, Craig Ringer <craig@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>> The #1 question I see on Stack Overflow has to be confusion about
>>> pg_hba.conf, mostly from people who have no idea it exists, don't understand
>>> how to configure it, etc.
>> The totally non-obvious name of the file probably has something to do
>> with that. It should be called 'auth.conf'.
> Not convinced; since it only controls one facet of auth - it doesn't
> define users, passwords, grants, etc ...
When somebody is setting up postgres for the first time, and they list
the contents of the config directory, you want them to have some idea
what each of the files is for. If they see something called
'auth.conf', they'll get the right general idea. An understanding of
the nuances (like that it doesn't control user accounts) will come
once they open up the file -- which they may well do, because it is
called 'auth.conf', and 'auth' is a thing you want to configure.
If they see something called 'pg_hba.conf', they may very reasonably
assume that it is some internal/advanced stuff that they don't need to
worry about just yet, because what the heck is a 'pg_hba'? The 'pg'
is unnecessary and the 'hba' is an internal jargon term that we've
ill-advisedly allowed to leak out into the filename.
If you really feel that 'auth.conf' is too imprecise, maybe something
like 'conn-auth.conf' would be more your style.
Cheers,
BJ