Postgres 17.0

• Based on Debian
• Includes postgres-contrib, enables the extensions pg_stat_statements by default
• Includes wal-g for WAL archiving and shipping
• Includes pg_auto_failover for automatic failover
• Runs as postgres user with uid (1000), gid (1000)
• Does not try to fix permissions during boot to support a fast startup
• Does not have Dockerfile VOLUME declarations and therefore no issues with pg_upgrade --link
• Simplifies streaming replication setups by providing some simple commands

Create a container and give it a name

# Secured with a password, by default the image is secure
docker run -d  --name postgres -p 5432:5432 -v postgres:/var/lib/postgresql -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=somepassword livingdocs/postgres:17.0

Upgrade an existing postgres container

# Let's assume you've created a container previously
docker run -d --name postgres -p 5432:5432 -v postgres:/var/lib/postgresql livingdocs/postgres:14.5

# First stop it, then run the upgrade image
docker stop postgres
docker run --rm -v postgres:/var/lib/postgresql livingdocs/postgres:17.0-upgrade

# After it succeeds, you can run the new image and mount the existing volume
docker run -d --name postgres -p 5432:5432 -v postgres:/var/lib/postgresql livingdocs/postgres:17.0

To build this image manually

docker build -t livingdocs/postgres:17.0 .

With buildx on docker

# To build and push the multi-arch manifest to docker hub
docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 -t livingdocs/postgres:17.0 --push .

docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 -t livingdocs/postgres:17.0-upgrade --push  -f Dockerfile.upgrade .

With nerdctl on lima/containerd

nerdctl build --platform=amd64,arm64 -t livingdocs/postgres:17.0 .
nerdctl build --platform=amd64,arm64 -t livingdocs/postgres:17.0-upgrade -f Dockerfile.upgrade .

lima nerdctl push --all-platforms livingdocs/postgres:17.0
lima nerdctl push --all-platforms livingdocs/postgres:17.0-upgrade

Set up streaming replication

Simple setup

# Create the containers
docker run -d -p 5433:5432 --name postgres-1 livingdocs/postgres:17.0
docker run -d -p 5434:5432 --name postgres-2 livingdocs/postgres:17.0 standby -d "host=host.docker.internal port=5433 user=postgres target_session_attrs=read-write"

# Test the replication
docker exec postgres-1 psql -c "CREATE TABLE hello (value text); INSERT INTO hello(value) VALUES('world');"
docker exec postgres-2 psql -c "SELECT * FROM hello;"
# Output:
#   value
#  -------
#  world
#  (1 row)

Advanced setup using passwords

# Create a docker network to emulate dns resolution in a production system
docker network create local

# First create the database primary
docker run -d -p 5433:5432 --name postgres-1 --network=local --network-alias=postgres -e POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=md5 livingdocs/postgres:17.0

# Create the users on database intialization
# You could also mount an sql or script into /var/lib/postgresql/initdb.d during cluster startup to execute the script automatically.
docker exec postgres-1 psql -c "ALTER ROLE postgres ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'some-postgres-password';"
docker exec postgres-1 psql -c "CREATE USER replication REPLICATION LOGIN ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'some-replication-password';"

# The launch the replicas
export DB_URL="host=postgres port=5432 user=replication password=some-replication-password target_session_attrs=read-write"
docker run -d -p 5434:5432 --name postgres-2 --network=local --network-alias=postgres livingdocs/postgres:17.0 standby -d $DB_URL
docker run -d -p 5435:5432 --name postgres-3 --network=local --network-alias=postgres livingdocs/postgres:17.0 standby -d $DB_URL

# Test the replication
docker exec postgres-1 psql -c "CREATE TABLE hello (value text); INSERT INTO hello(value) VALUES('hello');"
docker exec postgres-2 psql -c "SELECT * FROM hello;"
docker exec postgres-3 psql -c "SELECT * FROM hello;"
# Output for both instances:
#  value
# -------
# hello
# (1 row)


#
# Test a replica promotion (manually)
#
docker rm -f postgres-1

# Inserts will still fail into slaves: ERROR:  cannot execute INSERT in a read-only transaction
docker exec postgres-2 psql -c "INSERT INTO hello(value) VALUES('world');"

# Promote a slave
docker exec postgres-2 touch /var/lib/postgresql/data/promote.signal

# And test it
docker exec postgres-2 psql -c "INSERT INTO hello(value) VALUES('world');"
docker exec postgres-3 psql -c "SELECT * FROM hello;"
# Output for both instances:
#  value
# -------
#  hello
#  world
# (2 rows)

To promote a replica to a primary

Please make sure that first the old master doesn't accept any writes anymore. Either stop it or reject writes:

ALTER SYSTEM SET default_transaction_read_only TO 'on';
SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pg_stat_activity.pid) FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE pid <> pg_backend_pid();

Then promote the replica. There are two options:

• Create the promote.signal in the data directory touch /var/lib/postgresql/data/promote.signal on the replica. If you've changed your configuration, make sure promote_trigger_file declares that path.
• Execute gosu postgres pg_ctl promote in the container.