What is Pgpool-II?

Pgpool-II is a PostgreSQL proxy. It stands between PostgreSQL servers and their clients providing connection pooling, load balancing, automated failover, and replication.

TL;DR;

$ docker run --name pgpool bitnami/pgpool:latest

Docker Compose

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-pgpool/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Why use Bitnami Images?

Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
All our images are based on minideb a minimalist Debian based container image which gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading linux distribution.
All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Docker Content Trust (DTC). You can use DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1 to verify the integrity of the images.
Bitnami container images are released daily with the latest distribution packages available.

This CVE scan report contains a security report with all open CVEs. To get the list of actionable security issues, find the "latest" tag, click the vulnerability report link under the corresponding "Security scan" field and then select the "Only show fixable" filter on the next page.

How to deploy Pgpool-II in Kubernetes?

Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami PostgreSQL HA Chart GitHub repository.

Bitnami containers can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

Why use a non-root container?

Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.

Supported tags and respective `Dockerfile` links

NOTE: Debian 9 and Oracle Linux 7 images have been deprecated in favor of Debian 10 images. Bitnami will not longer publish new Docker images based on Debian 9 or Oracle Linux 7.

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

4-debian-10, 4.1.1-debian-10-r53, 4, 4.1.1, latest (4/debian-10/Dockerfile)

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/pgpool GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami Pgpool-II Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

$ docker pull bitnami/pgpool:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

$ docker pull bitnami/pgpool:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself.

$ docker build -t bitnami/pgpool:latest 'https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-pgpool.git#master:4/debian-10'

Connecting to other containers

Using Docker container networking, a different server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers and vice-versa.

Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.

Using the Command Line

In this example, we will create a PostgreSQL client instance that will connect to the pgpool instance that is running on the same docker network as the client.

Step 1: Create a network

$ docker network create my-network --driver bridge

Step 2: Launch 2 postgresql-repmgr containers to be used as backend within your network

Use the --network <NETWORK> argument to the docker run command to attach the container to the my-network network.

$ docker run --detach --rm --name pg-0 \
  --network my-network \
  --env REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpass \
  --env POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser \
  --env POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase \
  bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:latest
$ docker run --detach --rm --name pg-1 \
  --network my-network \
  --env REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpass \
  --env POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser \
  --env POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase \
  bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:latest

Step 3: Launch the pgpool container within your network

Use the --network <NETWORK> argument to the docker run command to attach the container to the my-network network.

$ docker run --detach --rm --name pgpool \
  --network my-network \
  --env PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES=0:pg-0:5432,1:pg-1:5432 \
  --env PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER=customuser \
  --env PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  --env PGPOOL_ENABLE_LDAP=no \
  --env PGPOOL_POSTGRES_USERNAME=postgres \
  --env PGPOOL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env PGPOOL_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin \
  --env PGPOOL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  bitnami/pgpool:latest

Step 4: Launch your PostgreSQL client instance

Finally we create a new container instance to launch the PostgreSQL client and connect to the server created in the previous step:

$ docker run -it --rm \
  --network my-network \
  bitnami/postgresql:10 \
  psql -h pgpool -U customuser -d customdatabase

Using Docker Compose

When not specified, Docker Compose automatically sets up a new network and attaches all deployed services to that network. However, we will explicitly define a new bridge network named my-network. In this example we assume that you want to connect to the Pgpool server from your own custom application image which is identified in the following snippet by the service name myapp.

version: '2'

networks:
  my-network:
    driver: bridge
services:
  pg-0:
    image: bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:11
    ports:
      - 5432
    volumes:
      - pg_0_data:/bitnami/postgresql
    environment:
      - POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword
      - POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser
      - POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword
      - POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase
      - REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpassword
      - REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0
      - REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1
      - REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-0
      - REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-0
  pg-1:
    image: bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:11
    ports:
      - 5432
    volumes:
      - pg_1_data:/bitnami/postgresql
    environment:
      - POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword
      - POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser
      - POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword
      - POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase
      - REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpassword
      - REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0
      - REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1
      - REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-1
      - REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-1
  pgpool:
    image: bitnami/pgpool:4
    ports:
      - 5432:5432
    environment:
      - PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES=0:pg-0:5432,1:pg-1:5432
      - PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER=customuser
      - PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD=custompassword
      - PGPOOL_ENABLE_LDAP=no
      - PGPOOL_POSTGRES_USERNAME=postgres
      - PGPOOL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword
      - PGPOOL_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
      - PGPOOL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpassword
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "/healthcheck.sh"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
  myapp:
    image: 'YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE'
    networks:
      - my-network
volumes:
  pg_0_data:
    driver: local
  pg_1_data:
    driver: local

IMPORTANT:

Please update the YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE_ placeholder in the above snippet with your application image

In your application container, use the hostname pgpool to connect to the PostgreSQL server

Launch the containers using:

$ docker-compose up -d

Configuration

Setting up a HA PostgreSQL cluster with pgpool, streaming replication and repmgr

A HA PostgreSQL cluster with Pgpool, Streaming replication and repmgr can easily be setup with the Bitnami PostgreSQL with Replication Manager and Pgpool Docker Images using the following environment variables:

Pgpool:

PGPOOL_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the password for the custom user set in the PGPOOL_USERNAME environment variable. This will override the value specified in PGPOOL_PASSWORD. No defaults.
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER: Username to use to perform streaming checks. No defaults.
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD: Password to use to perform streaming checks. No defaults.
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the password to use to perform streaming checks. This will override the value specified in PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD. No defaults.
PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES: Comma separated list of backend nodes in the cluster. No defaults.
PGPOOL_ENABLE_LDAP: Whether to enable LDAP authentication. Defaults to no.
PGPOOL_DISABLE_LOAD_BALANCE_ON_WRITE: Specify load balance behavior after write queries appear ('off', 'transaction', 'trans_transaction', 'always'). Defaults to 'transaction'
PGPOOL_NUM_INIT_CHILDREN: The number of preforked Pgpool-II server processes. num_init_children is also the concurrent connections limit to Pgpool-II from clients. Defaults to 32.
PGPOOL_ENABLE_LOAD_BALANCING: Whether to enable Load-Balancing mode. Defaults to yes.
PGPOOL_ENABLE_POOL_HBA: Whether to use the pool_hba.conf authentication. Defaults to yes.
PGPOOL_ENABLE_POOL_PASSWD: Whether to use a password file specified by PGPOOL_PASSWD_FILE for authentication. Defaults to yes.
PGPOOL_PASSWD_FILE: The password file for authentication. Defaults to pool_passwd.
PGPOOL_MAX_POOL: The maximum number of cached connections in each child process. Defaults to 15.
PGPOOL_NUM_INIT_CHILDREN: The number of preforked Pgpool server processes. Default is 32.
PGPOOL_POSTGRES_USERNAME: Postgres administrator user name, this will be use to allow postgres admin authentication through Pgpool.
PGPOOL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD: Password for the user set in PGPOOL_POSTGRES_USERNAME environment variable. No defaults.
PGPOOL_ADMIN_USERNAME: Username for the pgpool administrator. No defaults.
PGPOOL_ADMIN_PASSWORD: Password for the user set in PGPOOL_ADMIN_USERNAME environment variable. No defaults.

PostgreSQL with Replication Manager:

POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD: Password for postgres user. No defaults.
POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the postgres user password. This will override the value specified in POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD. No defaults.
POSTGRESQL_USERNAME: Custom user to access the database. No defaults.
POSTGRESQL_DATABASE: Custom database to be created on first run. No defaults.
POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD: Password for the custom user set in the POSTGRESQL_USERNAME environment variable. No defaults.
POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the password for the custom user set in the POSTGRESQL_USERNAME environment variable. This will override the value specified in POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD. No defaults.
REPMGR_USERNAME: Username for repmgr user. Defaults to repmgr.
REPMGR_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the repmgr user password. This will override the value specified in REPMGR_PASSWORD. No defaults.
REPMGR_PASSWORD: Password for repmgr user. No defaults.
REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST: Hostname of the initial primary node. No defaults.
REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES: Comma separated list of partner nodes in the cluster. No defaults.
REPMGR_NODE_NAME: Node name. No defaults.
REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME: Node hostname. No defaults.

In a HA PostgreSQL cluster you can have one primary and zero or more standby nodes. The primary node is in read-write mode, while the standby nodes are in read-only mode. For best performance its advisable to limit the reads to the standby nodes.

Step 1: Create a network

$ docker network create my-network --driver bridge

Step 2: Create the initial primary node

The first step is to start the initial primary node:

$ docker run --detach --name pg-0 \
  --network my-network \
  --env REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpass \
  --env POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser \
  --env POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase \
  bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:latest

Step 3: Create a standby node

Next we start a standby node:

$ docker run --detach --name pg-1 \
  --network my-network \
  --env REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES=pg-0,pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NAME=pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_NODE_NETWORK_NAME=pg-1 \
  --env REPMGR_PRIMARY_HOST=pg-0 \
  --env REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpass \
  --env REPMGR_PASSWORD=repmgrpass \
  --env POSTGRESQL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_USERNAME=customuser \
  --env POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  --env POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=customdatabase \
  bitnami/postgresql-repmgr:latest

Step 4: Create the pgpool instance

$ docker run --detach --rm --name pgpool \
  --network my-network \
  --env PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES=0:pg-0:5432,1:pg-1:5432 \
  --env PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER=postgres \
  --env PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD=adminpassword \
  --env PGPOOL_ENABLE_LDAP=no \
  --env PGPOOL_USERNAME=customuser \
  --env PGPOOL_PASSWORD=custompassword \
  bitnami/pgpool:latest

With these three commands you now have a two node PostgreSQL primary-standby streaming replication cluster using Pgpool as proxy up and running. You can scale the cluster by adding/removing standby nodes without incurring any downtime.

Note: The cluster replicates the primary in its entirety, which includes all users and databases.

If the master goes down, repmgr will ensure any of the standby nodes takes the primary role, guaranteeing high availability.

Note: The configuration of the other nodes in the cluster needs to be updated so that they are aware of them. This would require you to restart the old nodes adapting the REPMGR_PARTNER_NODES environment variable. You also need to restart the Pgpoll instance adapting the PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES environment variable.

With Docker Compose the HA PostgreSQL cluster can be setup using the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-pgpool/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Initializing with custom scripts

Everytime the container is started, it will execute the files with extension .sh located at /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d after initializing Pgpool.

In order to have your custom files inside the docker image you can mount them as a volume.

$ docker run --name pgpool \
  -v /path/to/init-scripts:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d \
  bitnami/pgpool:latest

Or with docker-compose:

pgpool:
  image: bitnami/pgpool:latest
  volumes:
    - /path/to/init-scripts:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d

Configuration file

The image looks for a pgpool.conf file in /opt/bitnami/pgpool/conf/. You can mount a volume at /opt/bitnami/pgpool/conf/ and copy/edit the pgpool.conf file in the /path/to/pgpool-persistence/conf/. The default configurations will be populated to the conf/ directory if it's empty.

/path/to/pgpool-persistence/conf/
└── pgpool.conf

0 directories, 1 file

Step 1: Run the Pgpool image

Run the Pgpool image, mounting a directory from your host.

$ docker run --name pgpool \
    -v /path/to/pgpool-persistence/conf/:/opt/bitnami/pgpool/conf/ \
    bitnami/pgpool:latest

or using Docker Compose:

version: '2'

services:
  pgpool:
    image: bitnami/pgpool:latest
    ports:
      - '5432:5432'
    volumes:
      - /path/to/pgpool-persistence/conf/:/opt/bitnami/pgpool/conf/

Step 2: Edit the configuration

Edit the configuration on your host using your favorite editor.

vi /path/to/pgpool-persistence/conf/postgresql.conf

Step 3: Restart Pgpool

After changing the configuration, restart your Pgpool container for changes to take effect.

$ docker restart pgpool

or using Docker Compose:

$ docker-compose restart pgpool

Refer to the server configuration manual for the complete list of configuration options.

Environment variables

Please see the list of environment variables available in the Bitnami Pgpool container in the next table:

Environment Variable	Default value
PGPOOL_BACKEND_NODES	`nil`
PGPOOL_PORT_NUMBER	`5432`
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER	`nil`
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD	`nil`
PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_PASSWORD_FILE	`nil`
PGPOOL_POSTGRES_USERNAME	`nil`
PGPOOL_POSTGRES_PASSWORD	`nil`
PGPOOL_PASSWORD_FILE	`nil`
PGPOOL_TIMEOUT	`360`
PGPOOL_ENABLE_LDAP	`no`
PGPOOL_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin	`nil`
PGPOOL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=adminpassword	`nil`
PGPOOL_ENABLE_LOAD_BALANCING	`yes`
PGPOOL_ENABLE_POOL_HBA	`yes`
PGPOOL_ENABLE_POOL_PASSWD	`yes`
PGPOOL_PASSWD_FILE	`pool_passwd`
PGPOOL_MAX_POOL	`15`
PGPOOL_NUM_INIT_CHILDREN	`32`

Logging

The Bitnami Pgpool-II Docker image sends the container logs to stdout. To view the logs:

$ docker logs pgpool

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Pgpool-II, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

$ docker pull bitnami/pgpool:latest

Step 2: Stop the running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

$ docker stop pgpool

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

$ docker rm -v pgpool

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image.

$ docker run --name pgpool bitnami/pgpool:latest

Notable Changes

4.1.1-debian-10-r35

The Pgpool container has been migrated to a "non-root" user approach. Previously the container ran as the root user and the Pgpool daemon was started as the pgpool user. From now on, both the container and the Pgpool daemon run as user 1001. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001 to USER root in the Dockerfile.
No backwards compatibility issues are expected.
Environment variables related to LDAP configuration were renamed removing the PGPOOL_ prefix. For instance, to indicate the LDAP URI to use, you must set LDAP_URI instead of PGPOOL_LDAP_URI.

4.1.0-centos-7-r8

4.1.0-centos-7-r8 is considered the latest image based on CentOS.
Standard supported distros: Debian & OEL.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to include the following information in your issue:

Host OS and version
Docker version (docker version)
Output of docker info
Version of this container
The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

What is Pgpool-II?

TL;DR;

Docker Compose

Why use Bitnami Images?

How to deploy Pgpool-II in Kubernetes?

Why use a non-root container?

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Get this image

Connecting to other containers

Using the Command Line

Step 1: Create a network

Step 2: Launch 2 postgresql-repmgr containers to be used as backend within your network

Step 3: Launch the pgpool container within your network

Step 4: Launch your PostgreSQL client instance

Using Docker Compose

Configuration

Setting up a HA PostgreSQL cluster with pgpool, streaming replication and repmgr

Step 1: Create a network

Step 2: Create the initial primary node

Step 3: Create a standby node

Step 4: Create the pgpool instance

Initializing with custom scripts

Configuration file

Step 1: Run the Pgpool image

Step 2: Edit the configuration

Step 3: Restart Pgpool

Environment variables

Logging

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Step 1: Get the updated image

Step 2: Stop the running container

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

Step 4: Run the new image

Notable Changes

4.1.1-debian-10-r35

4.1.0-centos-7-r8

Contributing

Issues

License

About

Languages

Supported tags and respective `Dockerfile` links