Running initdb

TPA first creates postgres_data_dir if it doesn’t exist and ensures it has the correct ownership, permissions, and SELinux context. Then, unless the directory already contains a VERSION file, it runs initdb to initialize postgres_data_dir .

You can use the pre-initdb hook

to execute tasks before postgres_data_dir is created and initdb is run. If the hook initializes postgres_data_dir , TPA finds the VERSION file and therefore doesn’t run initdb .

You can optionally set postgres_initdb_opts to a list of options to pass to initdb :

cluster_vars:
  postgres_locale: de_DE.UTF-8
  postgres_initdb_opts:
  - --data-checksums

We recommend always including the --data-checksums option, which is included by default.

When running initdb , TPA sets TZ=UTC in the environment and sets LC_ALL to the postgres_locale you specify.

Separate configuration directory

By default, postgres_conf_dir is equal to postgres_data_dir , and the Postgres configuration files (postgresql.conf , pg_ident.conf , pg_hba.conf , and the include files in conf.d ) are created in the data directory. If you change postgres_conf_dir , after running initdb , TPA moves the generated configuration files to the new location.