On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 08:48:23PM -0500, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Michal Pasternak <michal@pasternak.w.lub.pl> wrote:
> > Martin Husemann [Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 03:25:59PM +0100]:
> > > I would imediately drop any package system that
> > > fidles with my database content automagically in such situations.
> > 
> > What's the difference between pg_dump performed automatically and
> > performed by hand?
> 
> You are not talking like a DBA. 
...
> Forget high availability, backup machines, fallback mechanisms.  If I'm a
> DBA, and my sysadmin came to me and said he'd installed my new database as
> requested, I'd expect to find my old one intact and unscathed.  The

Except that a given of pkgsrc, prior to pkgviews, is that the old server
pkg must be deleted before installing the new one. If you type
'pkg_delete postgresql' - expecting to find the server intact and
unscathed is delusional ;-)

In that context, Perhaps the approach should be a pre-delete script
which says "These databases haven't been dumped to the standard place.
(D)ump now, (U)ninstall without dumping (data will be inaccessible), or
(A)bort procedure."

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
Net Musing #5: Redundancy in a network doesn't mean two of everything and
half the staff to run it.
					      - Tomas T. Peiser, CET