Re: Postgres client/server parameters?

Jimmie H. Apsey wrote:
> Hello again mallah,
> Fair enough.  I am porting an application (which I wrote) comprised of
> 10 modules (i.e. stand-alone applications) which are written in C. These
> C programs call database library functions and X Windows library functions.
> Currently, these ported C programs run just fine on the database server,
> our only workstation and development station.  I am now trying to get
> these same programs to work on a client workstation.  So, I need to know
> what environment parameters are needed to be set, etc.  On the SGI
> system I wrote and has been in production for five years, there is an
> Illustra (which came after Postgres and INGRES in Michael Stonebraker
> products) parameter file which contains certain directories, buffer and
> cache sizes, password and the hostname of the database server.

If I am understanding you correctly, it sounds like in some manner you
are using the local PostgreSQL libraries to update the database, and you
want to be able to do the same thing remotely from another machine.
While I suspect that such a thing could be done, it probably wouldn't be
very portable. I would suggest the same thing mallah has, that you
recode your application to use an ODBC connection to the database
server. Unless your application is something that is to manage the
database itself, this is probably the best thing to do. I would even go
so far as to say you can manage the database as well via ODBC (though I
don't know much about PostgreSQL to back that assertion up), provided
you have the right access, permissions, etc for the user login.

> Also, I have a command line prompt for issuing commands directly to the
> database.  For example, I have on my current Postgres server the ability
> to type at the command prompt,
>
>     "/usr/bin/psql database_name"
>
> and I am put into the database server prompt of #.
>
> How do I do this on another workstation?
>
> Next, how do I run the C programs which access the Postgres database
> from another workstation?

Another possibility would be to leave the programs running on the
server, and export the X session output to the appropriate workstations.
  (my terminology may be off here, but basically with X you can run a
program, and re-direct the output over the network to another box
running X, similar to the Windows products PC-Anywhere and Terminal
Server, as well as products like Remote Desktop and VNC).

I hope this helps a little,

Andrew L. Ayers