> On Jul 8, 2020, at 5:57 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > >>> On Jul 8, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: >>> Just to be sure, "show listen_addresses" actually shows that, >>> and not something else? > >> I didn’t check, but then changed it to ‘*’ since troubleshooting these connection issues I’m having. > > Well, my point here is that you didn't close the loop to establish that > what you thought you'd set listen_addresses to had actually taken effect. > The default value is 'localhost', and there are several ways that that > might still be the active value even if you'd edited the config file to > say something else.
OK, then why even have a config file if it’s ignored, or possibly not ignored? Isn’t that the point of a config file?
Consider that usually software will read its configuration files only when the software is launched. PostgreSQL, being a long-running service, provides some facilities to change configuration while it is still running. However, that capability comes with rules and limitations. The setting you are talking about it one of those with a limitation.
>> The issue was that it WAS connecting when set to the LAN IP4 address only. > > That's pretty hard to believe; I think a configuration oversight is > a much more likely explanation.
Well, all of a sudden, my app was complaining that Pogtgres wasn’t accepting on that port, when the app had been using just that. Nothing changed and it suddenly went deaf. People suggested looking at the listen_addresses directive.
Given how vague that all is it's still going to be supposed that there is operator error involved relative to the listen_address configuration rather than the server being bugged and ignoring it. Especially since your observed problem is that the application couldn't connect to the server but your problem report is that the application could connect even though it probably shouldn't have.
In short, this doesn't look like a bug and if you are having application connectivity issues help for those is preferably provided on the -general list, not -bugs.