TIL 20250228
Today I learnt that ALTER SYSTEM SET max_connections = 100;
writes a new configuration file in the data directory for PostgreSQL, postgresql.auto.conf
which takes priority over the values in the normal postgresql.config
file.
It's especially pointless to use ALTER SYSTEM
for max_connections because you need to restart PostgreSQL anyway, as it allocates memory for the connections at start up. You gain nothing by having this configuration tucked away in a separate configuration file - might as well change the standard configuration file, then restart.