Re: Simple postgresql.conf wizard

On Sun, 2 Nov 2008, Josh Berkus wrote:

> I'd start with command-line switches, e.g.
> config --memory=32GB --type=DW --size=500GB --connections=20

That seems reasonable, I think I'll push a fancier UI on the backburner 
then and just spec out an options interface like this one.

> I think in initial versions we should just get the info from the admin.  I've 
> explored the issues around getting OS-independant accurate system stats, and 
> they are many.

I'm aware how thorny a perfect solution is here.  One thing that's nice 
about Python is that there are two interfaces for getting system 
information built-in, the os.sysconf I used already and the the 
distutils.sysconfig one, aimed more at C-level module writers.  Far as 
I've been able to tell it's not that hard to get something that works on 
most platforms to auto-detect memory and architecture, and I've realized 
the latter is kind of important because it determines how big you can make 
some things on 32-bit platforms.

After some digging I see there isn't any good interface built-in for 
Windows, but it's not hard to ask a DDL for the information.  I think it's 
reasonable to try and detect total memory+bit width, allow overriding 
that, and if detection fails and nothing was specified to error out. 
Should make a good balance of reasonable automatic behavior in a lot of 
cases, while still allowing the admin to adjust.  There's a completely 
valid use-case for that even not considering detection failures, where 
you're building a config file on a system other than the one it's being 
deployed onto.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD