Most lines commented out in configuration file

[smith]

In https://github.com/phlipper/chef-postgresql/blob/a8754424a42e232a22d355654d4020e5b55560f8/templates/default/postgresql.conf.erb, most of the directives are commented out. Am I missing something here? Won't setting most of these attributes just not do anything?

If for some reason this is intended, it's confusing and not clear from the docs.

[jagregory]

I've just encountered this too. Changing any of the logging settings (obviously) has no effect, as even though the lines are correct they're still commented out.

[phlipper]

@smith, @jagregory,

The postgresql.conf file as-is is the default that ships with the package. Simply uncommenting all of the options results in the server unable to load.

My plan is to eventually support explicit templating as I do in phlipper/chef-percona, but I have not had a chance to implement that yet.

Pull requests to improve this support would gladly be welcomed.

[phlipper]

@smith, @jagregory, this issue has been addressed via 394bbc1.

[sethcall]

I ran into this just now... I'm changing the WAL settings, but they are commented out.

I understand if I switch to 'custom' configs, i.e, ['postgresql']['conf']['archive_mode'] etc, that I'll get what I want.

Ok, that's fine--but what I'm confused about is offering up the 'standard' template mechanism in the docs. It seems to me the standard config feature is broken as long as the commenting out. Is there a way to practically use it?

A question--if you could tell that that the user specified something other than the default value in your template, would you then not feel comfortable in commenting out that specific config?

Something like:

<%= wal_level_specified? ? '#' : "" %>wal_level = <%= node["postgresql"]["wal_level"] %> # minimal, archive, or hot_standby

[kindrowboat]

I agree with @sethcall on this one. Because if someone uses the node[:postgresql][:conf][ ... ] options, then they need to specify every option and can't rely on the postgresql reasonable defaults. The current implementation renders most of the node[:postgresql][ ... ] conf related attributes useless and the node[:postgresql][conf][ ... ] attributes impractical.

One strategy is to have the default node attributes set to nil if their corresponding configuration options that are commented out in the stock postgresql.conf; in the template, have each of those lines go something like:

<%= node['wal_level'].nil? ? '# wal_level = minimal' : "wal_level = #{node[:postgresql][:wal_level]}" %> # minimal, archive, or hot_standby

While there is some verbosity, I think this is a nice compromise to having as much of the stock postgresql.conf be preserved as possible. This would also make the documentation clearer and less misleading.

Thoughts? I'd be happy to work on this if this is the direction you'd like to go @phlipper.