Hi,
On 14/01/2011 7:35, Craig Ringer wrote:
On 01/14/2011 06:26 AM, Jensen Somers wrote:
I know that some applications (Poker Tracker 3 is the first one that
comes to my mind)
It's not a good example, either, as demonstrated by the number of
questions that pop up about it on this list, and the incredibly
ancient versions of Pg that they bundle.
install PostgreSQL during their installation process
too and setup the initial database. I sort of figured out how to do
this, but I don't know how to deal with an already existing installation
during setup.
I take it you're talking about doing a silent install using the
postgresql exe installer, by invoking it as part of your own app's
installer?
Personally, that's not how I'd do it if I were bundling Pg in my
(Windows) app, because as you mentioned it may interfere with any
existing or future Pg install the user wants to do manually. It'll
also show up separately in add/remove programs, which I think is
undesirable when it's just being installed as a component of your app.
If my app required Pg, I'd probably bundle the Pg installation tree in
my installer and copy it into my program's install directory. I'd then
create a non-login user account named after my application (NOT
"postgres"), set up the service (again named for my application), and
invoke initdb to create the database under that service account. I'd
generate a postgresql.conf with a semi-random fairly high port number
that wasn't already in use on the target machine, to avoid conflicting
with the commonly used postgresql port. All this can be done using the
scripting languages provided by most installers, or via simple Windows
command line tools like "net.exe" and friends. If your installer is
particularly limited, you can always write and bundle a simple helper
program for it to invoke to do the work. My uninstaller would prompt
the user to ask if they wanted to remove data as well as the program;
if they said yes I'd remove the datadir and the user account I'd
created during installation.
This way, your instance of PostgreSQL is private to your app and
doesn't conflict with anything the user might want to do. You can
upgrade it when you upgrade your app, provide backup facilities for it
in your app, etc etc without the user having to care what's behind the
scenes.
If that wasn't viable, the only other option I'd consider would be
providing a postgresql installer and asking the user to install it if
they didn't already have it installed. I'd then prompt for the
database host, port, username, password and database name to connect
to, and would just use what was provided to me. This is almost
certainly how it should be done on UNIX/Linux platforms.
--
Craig Ringer
Bundling it as part of my application is even better. I didn't knew if
that would be possible, but it would solve some of the issues. Mainly
data protection. The data that needs to be stored should not be altered
by users. If they have access to the database via a root password, which
would be the case when using the installer or an existing server they
can manipulate the data. Implementing your suggested solution would
prevent all that, which makes it a perfect solution.
Thanks, I know what I'll be doing today!
- Jensen
--
Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
