PolarDB PG

Using Alibaba Cloud’s open-source PolarDB for PostgreSQL kernel to provide domestic innovation qualification support, with Oracle RAC-like user experience.

Overview

Use Pigsty and PolarDB to create PostgreSQL clusters with “domestic innovation qualification” credentials.

PolarDB for PostgreSQL now uses PostgreSQL 17 as its base. The Pigsty polar template, default path, and extension notes now use PG17. Any client tool that supports the PostgreSQL wire protocol can connect to PolarDB clusters.

Pigsty’s PGSQL repository provides PolarDB PG open-source installation packages. Pigsty does not download these packages to the local software repository during installation.

Installation

Use the built-in Pigsty template:

./configure -c polar
./deploy.yml

Change Summary

From Pigsty v4.4, the PolarDB PG kernel uses packages that Pigsty builds and maintains. The main changes are:

Item	Old docs / old default	Current
Kernel baseline	PostgreSQL 15	PostgreSQL 17
Default PolarDB path	`/u01/polardb_pg`	`/usr/polar-17`
Supported architectures	`x86_64`	`x86_64`, `aarch64`
Available extensions	Old docs said 61	`pg_available_extensions` returns 93; 34 remain after filtering contrib
Replication user requirement	`replicator` must be `SUPERUSER`	unchanged

Configuration

Set these parameters for PolarDB database clusters:

#----------------------------------#
# PGSQL & PolarDB
#----------------------------------#
pg_version: 17
pg_mode: polar
pg_packages: [ polardb, pgsql-common ]
pg_exporter_exclude_database: 'template0,template1,postgres,polardb_admin'
pg_default_roles:
  - { name: dbrole_readonly  ,login: false ,comment: role for global read-only access     }
  - { name: dbrole_offline   ,login: false ,comment: role for restricted read-only access }
  - { name: dbrole_readwrite ,login: false ,roles: [dbrole_readonly] ,comment: role for global read-write access }
  - { name: dbrole_admin     ,login: false ,roles: [pg_monitor, dbrole_readwrite] ,comment: role for object creation }
  - { name: postgres     ,superuser: true  ,comment: system superuser }
  - { name: replicator   ,superuser: true  ,replication: true ,roles: [pg_monitor, dbrole_readonly] ,comment: system replicator } # <- superuser is required for replication
  - { name: dbuser_dba   ,superuser: true  ,roles: [dbrole_admin]  ,pgbouncer: true ,pool_mode: session, pool_connlimit: 16 ,comment: pgsql admin user }
  - { name: dbuser_monitor ,roles: [pg_monitor] ,pgbouncer: true ,parameters: {log_min_duration_statement: 1000 } ,pool_mode: session ,pool_connlimit: 8 ,comment: pgsql monitor user }

The default installation directory for the polar kernel is now /usr/polar-17. PolarDB PG still requires the replicator replication user to be SUPERUSER. Native PostgreSQL does not have this requirement.

Available Extensions

The PolarDB PG kernel has 93 available extensions. The following table lists the extra extensions, excluding bundled PG Contrib extensions:

Extension	Version	Description
hll	`2.18`	type for storing hyperloglog data
ip4r	`2.4`
log_fdw	`1.4`	foreign-data wrapper for Postgres log file access
pase	`0.0.1`	ant ai similarity search
pg_bigm	`1.2`	text similarity measurement and index searching based on bigrams
pg_cron	`1.5`	Job scheduler for PostgreSQL
pg_cron_preload	`1.0`	polardb pg extend catalog
pg_hint_plan	`1.7.0`	optimizer hints for PostgreSQL
pg_jieba	`1.1.0`	a parser for full-text search of Chinese
pg_partman	`5.2.4`	Extension to manage partitioned tables by time or ID
pg_profile	`4.10`	PostgreSQL load profile repository and report builder
pg_repack	`1.5.1-1`	Reorganize tables in PostgreSQL databases with minimal locks
pg_similarity	`1.0`	support similarity queries
pg_squeeze	`1.9`	A tool to remove unused space from a relation.
pg_stat_kcache	`2.3.0`	Kernel statistics gathering
pgaudit	`17.1`	provides auditing functionality
pgtap	`1.3.3`	Unit testing for PostgreSQL
pldbgapi	`1.1`	server-side support for debugging PL/pgSQL functions
polar_advisor	`1.1`	polar_advisor
polar_feature_utils	`1.0`	PolarDB feature utilization
polar_io_stat	`1.0`	polar io stat in multi dimension
polar_monitor	`1.3`	monitor functions for PolarDB
polar_monitor_preload	`1.0`	examine the polardb information
polar_parameter_manager	`1.2`	Extension to select parameters for manger.
polar_proxy_utils	`1.0`	Extension to provide operations about proxy.
polar_resource_manager	`1.0`	a background process that forcibly frees user session process memory
polar_smgrperf	`1.0`	smgr perf test extension
polar_tde_utils	`1.0`	Internal extension for TDE
polar_vfs	`1.0`	polar virtual file system for different storage
polar_worker	`1.1`	polar_worker
prefix	`1.2.0`	Prefix Range module for PostgreSQL
roaringbitmap	`0.5`	support for Roaring Bitmaps
sequential_uuids	`1.0.3`	generator of sequential UUIDs
varbitx	`1.1`	varbit functions pack