There's a number of options that you can change in postgresql without having to restart the whole server.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/auth-pg-hba-conf.h... explains that you can just do a reload after changing pg_hba.conf.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/config-setting.htm... explains more.
Re:PostgreSQL 9.4 Beta 1 Released
by bradleysmith on Thursday May 15, 2014 @02:45PM
(#7751382)
thanks much, digging through both.
Appreciate it!