3.3 Installing the default database

For the following steps, log in as the user gnats.

We are now going to initialize the default gnats database. Run the following command:

     mkdb default

This creates a database named default, with all its data stored below the directory prefix/com/gnatsdb, in a default installation this corresponds to /usr/local/com/gnatsdb. If you specified the --enable-gnats-default-db option when running configure, the default database will be created under the directory you specified instead. mkdb creates the database directory itself, together with three different subdirectories¹:

• A directory for the mandatory gnats category pending.
• A gnats-queue directory for queueing new messages to gnats before they are processed by file-pr.
• The administrative directory gnats-adm. This directory is populated with default configuration files from the prefix/etc/gnats/defaults directory.

The next configuration step is to edit the default files copied to the database's gnats-adm directory by mkdb.

The default dbconfig file installed by mkdb provides a good basis for many gnats databases. The default file causes similar behaviour to the 3.x versions of gnats. However, even if this might be precisely what you want, you should still go through the file and check that the default settings suit your needs. See The dbconfig file.

Then edit the files categories, responsible, and submitters in the gnats-adm directory (see Other database-specific config files) to reflect your local needs. For special configurations, you may also have to edit the states and classes files.

If you used the --enable-gnats-default-db option in the pre-build configure to change the location of the default database, you need to edit the databases config file, see The databases file. This file is by default located in the prefix/etc/gnats directory, but may have been changed by the option --enable-gnats-dblist-file option during configure.