A config issue to a database not on the same system

[Art]

Hi All,

As my first post, I'll share that I had looked at a LOT of packages and 
rejected all of them and was just beginning (started writing the 
architecture and code yesterday) to do something VASTLY more modest (as I 
don't have a team for that or much time!) for my needs when a friend who 
is a maintainer on a few GNU packages pointed me at MediaGoblin! YAY! It 
looks like an even more thought-through version of what I would have done 
if I had time - I was even going to use node.js and Postgres! I'm excited 
about this and as you folks have (hopefully) saved me a lot of time, I 
will TRY to give back and find a place where I can help. ...I'm a good 
writer - maybe I can help write documentation?

I wouldn't be writing this but a basic search for sql_engine gave 
SQL_Database_Backend page that says, "This is all outdated; the switch to 
SQL has happened." And, it doesn't have a forward link to younger 
versions. (I didn't continue reading it.)

Clearly, I'm new to Media Goblin but not at all new to linux / gnu, etc. 
And before I get deeper into my issue, I looked for and didn't find any 
archive. (As I run mailman lists myself, I knew to look!) And, secondly, 
this is more of an operational issue as opposed to a development one, but 
I didn't see any other list to ask publicised... NOR did I find other 
documentation (no man page or info on my install, web though make 
originally failed on that part in the Makefile, but this SEEMS to have 
fixed it: "dnf install python3-jinja2\*" {I'm on Fedora 35 - about to 
upgrade.}) But even though a subsequent make completed fine, there's no 
man page or info entry using mediagoblin as the target. Should I dig 
deeper into the source tree?

Obviously, if I'm asking in the wrong place or overlooking resources, 
please school me! I surely mean no offense - I've been on email lists like 
this for around three decades and well know some take offense at asking 
questions in the wrong place!

Now, my issue:

In this instance, this is a "get your feet wet before diving in" scenario 
where we're taking a modest-capacity backup web server that's otherwise 
disused and is only there to fill in for temporary duty if the primary 
fails. And so it doesn't have the resources to run the database. However, 
we've got a few genuine servers on the internal network for this and this 
is a Postgres shop as I was fortunate enough to work with Michael 
Stonebraker at UCB as development was coming to a close and remained while 
Paul Aoki as he made SQL the primary language and launched it as an open 
source FOSS project - WAY back in 1995 to ... '97 I think. So, yeah, I've 
used Postgres since before it was PostgreSQL. But I digress.

Anyway, I'm NOT a python guy, and "young" with java script / node.js, and 
the entry for the database is very unfamiliar to me. I'm a lot more 
familiar with what's needed with normal Java jdbc, which would, for our 
environ, includes something like, along with a lot of other stuff:

ssl=true&sslmode=require&sslfactory=org.postgresql.ssl.NonValidatingFactory

And, further, one needs to specify things like the target host, port, 
user, password and so forth.

NOTE: IDK what versions of Postgres you folks are using for development 
but modern versions force encryption as much as possible, to the point 
that the former methods of connecting were not just deprecated but 
removed, even for local environments. (If you can get it to work, I 
obviously just haven't spent enough time playing with it as I just 
configured the encryption and got on with life.) Either way, the settings 
needed for (on Fedora):

/var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf

...can be somewhat tricky. (And I wouldn't tell them out of respect for 
the awesome work the present developers are doing, but I think the 
strategy in hba.conf could use some work - but nobody wants to work on 
it.)

So, what's the syntax needed here, for sql_engine? Can anyone share the 
format they're using for when the RDBMS is on a different box?

Thanks,
Art

--
Art Richards
Art@TheTroyPress.com
http://TheTroyPress.com