Re: host name support in pg_hba.conf

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
> On 10/06/2010 04:05 AM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On tis, 2010-10-05 at 22:17 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> So far as I can find, there is *no* standard
>>> mandating that localhost means the loopback address.

>> Should we then change pgstat.c to use IP addresses instead of hardcoding
>> "localhost"?

> I understood Tom to be saying we should not rely on "localhost" for 
> authentication, not that we shouldn't use it at all.

I think it's all right to use it as the default value for
listen_addresses, because (1) it's an understandable default,
and (2) users can change the setting if it doesn't work.

However, the usage in pgstat.c is hard-wired, meaning that if you
have a configuration where "localhost" doesn't resolve correctly
for whatever reason, there's no simple recourse to get the stats
collector working.  So ISTM there is an argument for changing that.
        regards, tom lane