Re: [HACKERS] RFC: Industrial-strength logging (long message)

Thus spake Tim Holloway
> Request For Comments:  Towards an industrial-strength
> logging facility

<COMMENT>Woo hoo!</COMMENT>

Yes please.  As soon as possible.  I have been trying to figure out all
sorts of kluges for this.  I even considered putting something in PyGreSQL
but this is mush better.

> Design goals
> 
> 1. Robustness. Adding logging should not cause the system to
> become unstable.

Absolutely.

> 2. Performance. Unless you're IBM at least, logging is a
> means, not an end. The performance of the system
> must not be degraded.

If performance takes a hit, could it be turned on and off with a flag
or by the existence of the config file itself?  That way people willing
to pay for the logging can and those that need performance above all
can get it.

> Postgres [123] 900 - Logging configuration file
> "/usr/local/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf" was not found or
> denied access. Using default logging.

Or don't log - see above.

The one thing I would suggest is make sure that logs get date and time stamped.

How about the ability to send the log to a process instead of a file?  I
would like to log on a separate machine but there is firewall considerations.

> Although this scheme may appear elaborate, the internal
> realization is fairly simple. I have far more concern that
> it may overwhelm someone who is new to the entire PostgreSQL
> system and is FAR more interested at that time in learning

I don't see a problem here.  Logging would be an advanced subject.  No
one would have to deal with it.  I think it is important that it not
log (or log to /dev/null) by default so that new users don't suddenly
find their disk space disappearing.  Logging (especially if you log
SELECTs) cand use a lot of space.

Good work.  This was definitely needed.

-- 
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