Slim Installation

Install only HA PostgreSQL clusters with minimal dependencies

If you only want HA PostgreSQL database cluster itself without monitoring, infra, etc., consider Slim Installation.

Slim installation has no INFRA module, no monitoring, no local repo—just ETCD and PGSQL and partial NODE functionality.

Slim installation is suitable for:

Only needing PostgreSQL database itself, no observability infra required.
Extremely resource-constrained envs unwilling to bear infra overhead (~0.2 vCPU / 500MB on single node).
Already having external monitoring system, wanting to use your own unified monitoring framework.
Not wanting to introduce the AGPLv3-licensed Grafana visualization dashboard component.

Limitations of slim installation:

No INFRA module, cannot use WebUI and local software repo features.
Offline Install is limited to single-node mode; multi-node slim install can only be done online.

Overview

To use slim installation, you need to:

Use the slim.yml slim install config template (configure -c slim)
Run the slim.yml playbook instead of the default deploy.yml

curl https://repo.pigsty.io/get | bash
./configure -g -c slim
./slim.yml

Description

Slim installation only installs/configures these components:

Component	Required	Description
`patroni`	⚠️ Required	Bootstrap HA PostgreSQL cluster
`etcd`	⚠️ Required	Meta database dependency (DCS) for Patroni
`pgbouncer`	✔️ Optional	PostgreSQL connection pooler
`vip-manager`	✔️ Optional	L2 VIP binding to PostgreSQL cluster primary
`haproxy`	✔️ Optional	Auto-routing services via Patroni health checks
`chronyd`	✔️ Optional	Time synchronization with NTP server
`tuned`	✔️ Optional	Node tuning template and kernel parameter management

You can disable all optional components via configuration, keeping only the required patroni and etcd.

Because there’s no INFRA module’s Nginx providing local repo service, offline installation only works in single-node mode.

Configuration

Slim installation config file example: conf/slim.yml:

ID	NODE	PGSQL	INFRA	ETCD
1	`10.10.10.10`	`pg-meta-1`	No INFRA module	`etcd-1`

---
#==============================================================#
# File      :   slim.yml
# Desc      :   Pigsty slim installation config template
# Ctime     :   2020-05-22
# Mtime     :   2025-12-28
# Docs      :   https://doc.pgsty.com/config
# License   :   Apache-2.0 @ https://pigsty.io/docs/about/license/
# Copyright :   2018-2026  Ruohang Feng / Vonng ([email protected])
#==============================================================#

# This is the config template for slim / minimal installation
# No monitoring & infra will be installed, just raw postgresql
#
# Usage:
#   curl https://repo.pigsty.io/get | bash
#   ./configure -c slim
#   ./slim.yml

all:
  children:

    etcd: # dcs service for postgres/patroni ha consensus
      hosts: # 1 node for testing, 3 or 5 for production
        10.10.10.10: { etcd_seq: 1 }  # etcd_seq required
        #10.10.10.11: { etcd_seq: 2 }  # assign from 1 ~ n
        #10.10.10.12: { etcd_seq: 3 }  # odd number please
      vars: # cluster level parameter override roles/etcd
        etcd_cluster: etcd  # mark etcd cluster name etcd

    #----------------------------------------------#
    # PostgreSQL Cluster
    #----------------------------------------------#
    pg-meta:
      hosts:
        10.10.10.10: { pg_seq: 1, pg_role: primary }
        #10.10.10.11: { pg_seq: 2, pg_role: replica } # you can add more!
        #10.10.10.12: { pg_seq: 3, pg_role: replica, pg_offline_query: true }
      vars:
        pg_cluster: pg-meta
        pg_users:
          - { name: dbuser_meta ,password: DBUser.Meta   ,pgbouncer: true ,roles: [dbrole_admin   ] ,comment: pigsty admin user }
          - { name: dbuser_view ,password: DBUser.Viewer ,pgbouncer: true ,roles: [dbrole_readonly] ,comment: read-only viewer  }
        pg_databases:
          - { name: meta, baseline: cmdb.sql ,comment: pigsty meta database ,schemas: [pigsty] ,extensions: [ vector ]}
        node_crontab: [ '00 01 * * * postgres /pg/bin/pg-backup full' ] # make a full backup every 1am

  vars:
    version: v4.0.0                   # pigsty version string
    admin_ip: 10.10.10.10             # admin node ip address
    region: default                   # upstream mirror region: default,china,europe
    nodename_overwrite: false           # do not overwrite node hostname on single node mode
    node_repo_modules: node,infra,pgsql # add these repos directly to the singleton node
    node_tune: oltp                     # node tuning specs: oltp,olap,tiny,crit
    pg_conf: oltp.yml                   # pgsql tuning specs: {oltp,olap,tiny,crit}.yml
    pg_version: 18                      # Default PostgreSQL Major Version is 18
    pg_packages: [ pgsql-main, pgsql-common ]   # pg kernel and common utils
    #pg_extensions: [ pg18-time ,pg18-gis ,pg18-rag ,pg18-fts ,pg18-olap ,pg18-feat ,pg18-lang ,pg18-type ,pg18-util ,pg18-func ,pg18-admin ,pg18-stat ,pg18-sec ,pg18-fdw ,pg18-sim ,pg18-etl]

    #----------------------------------------------#
    # PASSWORD : https://doc.pgsty.com/config/security
    #----------------------------------------------#
    grafana_admin_password: pigsty
    grafana_view_password: DBUser.Viewer
    pg_admin_password: DBUser.DBA
    pg_monitor_password: DBUser.Monitor
    pg_replication_password: DBUser.Replicator
    patroni_password: Patroni.API
    haproxy_admin_password: pigsty
    minio_secret_key: S3User.MinIO
    etcd_root_password: Etcd.Root
...

Deployment

Slim installation uses the slim.yml playbook instead of deploy.yml:

./slim.yml

HA Cluster

Slim installation can also deploy HA clusters—just add more nodes to the etcd and pg-meta groups. A three-node deployment example:

ID	NODE	PGSQL	INFRA	ETCD
1	`10.10.10.10`	`pg-meta-1`	No INFRA module	`etcd-1`
2	`10.10.10.11`	`pg-meta-2`	No INFRA module	`etcd-2`
3	`10.10.10.12`	`pg-meta-3`	No INFRA module	`etcd-3`

all:
  children:
    etcd:
      hosts:
        10.10.10.10: { etcd_seq: 1 }
        10.10.10.11: { etcd_seq: 2 }  # <-- New
        10.10.10.12: { etcd_seq: 3 }  # <-- New

    pg-meta:
      hosts:
        10.10.10.10: { pg_seq: 1, pg_role: primary }
        10.10.10.11: { pg_seq: 2, pg_role: replica } # <-- New
        10.10.10.12: { pg_seq: 3, pg_role: replica } # <-- New
      vars:
        pg_cluster: pg-meta
        pg_users:
          - { name: dbuser_meta ,password: DBUser.Meta   ,pgbouncer: true ,roles: [dbrole_admin   ] ,comment: pigsty admin user }
          - { name: dbuser_view ,password: DBUser.Viewer ,pgbouncer: true ,roles: [dbrole_readonly] ,comment: read-only viewer  }
        pg_databases:
          - { name: meta, baseline: cmdb.sql ,comment: pigsty meta database ,schemas: [pigsty] ,extensions: [ vector ]}
        node_crontab: [ '00 01 * * * postgres /pg/bin/pg-backup full' ] # make a full backup every 1am
  vars:
    # omitted ……

Feedback

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for the feedback! Please let us know how we can improve.

Sorry to hear that. Please let us know how we can improve.

Last Modified 2026-01-09: add supabase asciinema demo (693cfa8)