Re: Parsing of pg_hba.conf and authentication inconsistencies

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Magnus,
> 
>> However it would be nice to throw an error or at least a warning when
>> parsing
>> the file instead of pretending everything's ok. Perhaps authentication
>> methods
>> should have a function to check whether the method is supported which is
>> called when the file is parsed.
>>
> 
> The good way to solve this would be to have independant command line
> utilities which check pg_hba.conf, pg_ident.conf and postgresql.conf for
> errors.  Then DBAs could run a check *before* restarting the server.

While clearly useful, it'd still leave the fairly large foot-gun that is
editing the hba file and HUPing things which can leave you with a
completely un-connectable database because of a small typo. The
difference in the "could run" vs "must run, thus runs automatically" part...

//Magnus