PGLogical 1.1 packages for PostgreSQL 9.6beta1

We have made pglogical 1.1 packages available for PostgreSQL 9.6beta1 for both rpm and deb based distributions. They are available for install from our standard pglogical package repository.

You may ask why do we release packages for beta version of Postgres? Well, one of the reasons is that you can use pglogical to replicate your existing PostgreSQL 9.5 or 9.4 database to the 9.6beta1 in real-time and run tests on it to help weed out any remaining bugs in the beta release. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do that.

First step is to install the PostgreSQL 9.6beta1, check the release announcement for information about how to do that. Second step is to install pglogical as explained on installation instructions page.

Now for the actual replication setup. It’s fairly easy. Start with making sure that the PostgreSQL is configured to allow the logical replication:

wal_level = 'logical'
max_worker_processes = 10   # one per database needed on provider node
                            # one per node needed on subscriber node
max_replication_slots = 10  # one per node needed on provider node
max_wal_senders = 10        # one per node needed on provider node
shared_preload_libraries = 'pglogical'

Changing the above settings requires restart of the server.

You should also allow incoming replication connections in pg_hba.conf (just like when setting up physical streaming replication). The line in pg_hba.conf should look something like this:

host    replication     postgres        10.0.0.2/32            md5

See the pg_hba documentation page for more info.

Next, install the pglogical extension on provider database and create the pglogical node there:

CREATE EXTENSION pglogical;
SELECT pglogical.create_node(
    node_name := 'provider1',
    dsn := 'host=providerhost port=5432 dbname=db'
);

Then do the same on the new 9.6 database:

CREATE EXTENSION pglogical;
SELECT pglogical.create_node(
    node_name := 'subscriber1',
    dsn := 'host=subscriberhost port=5432 dbname=db'
);

Note that he connection strings should lead to the database in which you are executing these commands.

Back on the provider database, add the tables you want to replicate to the default replication set. Simple way of doing this is to add all tables in the public schema like this:

SELECT pglogical.replication_set_add_all_tables('default', ARRAY['public']);

And finally, again on the subscriber database, create a subscription which connects to the provider and starts replicating.

SELECT pglogical.create_subscription(
    subscription_name := 'subscription1',
    provider_dsn := 'host=providerhost port=5432 dbname=db',
    synchronize_structure := true
);

Here the connection string should be the same as the one used when creating the provider pglogical node. The synchronize_structure := true means that pglogical will copy all table structures from provider database to the subscriber database (using standard pg_dump).

And that’s it, you now have working replication between your existing PostgreSQL 9.5 or 9.4 database and the new PostgreSQL 9.6beta1.

Check the pglogical documentation and project pages for additional information about the functions used in this post and on how to do more than just simple replication.