USER_CLUSTERS(5)

💖 USER_CLUSTERS(5) 💖

okay bestie, so this is a section 5 manual page — that's the "file formats and conventions" girlies — and it's part of the Debian PostgreSQL infrastructure. so you know it's giving real-deal system config energy. sit down, grab a strawberry, we're mapping users to clusters 💅

✨ NAME ✨

user_clusters — the file that links users to PostgreSQL clusters 🦋

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like. the file /etc/postgresql-common/user_clusters maps users against the database clusters they'll connect to by default. that's its whole thing. that's its moment. iconic behavior honestly.

but — and this is important — every single user can override these settings in ~/.postgresqlrc. so the file is more of a vibe suggestion than a vibe mandate, iykyk. 😌

when scanning this file, the first matching line will be used. not the last, not the best, not the prettiest — the first. so it is a really good idea to provide a default explicitly, with a final line where both user and group are set to *. put it last. periodt.

and if there is no default? if you just. didn't bother? the implicit default is:

• connect to the cluster listening on port 5432
• connect to the database matching the user's login name

so like, it'll work, but it's giving "I forgot to do the assignment and I'm improvising." do the assignment. 🎀

🎀 FORMAT 🎀

comments are introduced by the character #. comments may follow data on a line — the first comment character terminates the data. leading whitespace and blank lines are ignored, so go ahead and indent, she doesn't care, she's unbothered, she's thriving. 💅

each uncommented, non-blank line must describe a user, a group, or the default (where both user and group are set to *).

fields must be given in the following order, separated by white space:

• USER — the login id of the Unix user to whom this line applies. the wildcard character * means any user. ⭐
• GROUP — the group name of the Unix group to which this line applies. the wildcard character * means any group. ⭐
• VERSION — the major PostgreSQL version of the cluster to connect to.
• CLUSTER — the name of a cluster to connect to. a remote cluster is specified with host:port. if port is empty, it defaults to 5432.
• DATABASE — within the cluster, the database to which the user will connect by default if he does not specify a database on the command line. if this is *, the default database will be the one named by the user's login id. 👑

💜 NOTES 💜

since the first matching line is used, the default line must come last. bestie. I'm serious. put the default. at the bottom. 🔥

fr fr, this is the one thing everyone gets wrong and then they're in the group chat like "why is my cluster wrong" and it's because the default was on line 2. 😭

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• pg_wrapper(1)
• postgresqlrc(5)

and that's the page!! mwah 💖 this one's from the Debian era, dated Feburary 2005 (yes, that's how it's spelled in the source, and yes, we're preserving it, no cap — every detail stays, that's the rule 🫶). stay slay, go read postgresqlrc(5) next. bye bestie!! 🎀✨