This guide aims to give you a quick look and feel for using the Postgres Operator on a local Kubernetes environment.
Since the Postgres Operator is designed for the Kubernetes (K8s) framework, hence set it up first. For local tests we recommend to use one of the following solutions:
- minikube, which creates a single-node K8s cluster inside a VM (requires KVM or VirtualBox),
- kind, which allows creating multi-nodes K8s clusters running on Docker (requires Docker)
To interact with the K8s infrastructure install it's CLI runtime kubectl.
This quickstart assumes that you have started minikube or created a local kind
cluster. Note that you can also use built-in K8s support in the Docker Desktop
for Mac to follow the steps of this tutorial. You would have to replace
minikube start
and minikube delete
with your launch actions for the Docker
built-in K8s support.
Configuring the Postgres Operator is only possible before deploying a new
Postgres cluster. This can work in two ways: via a ConfigMap or a custom
OperatorConfiguration
object. More details on configuration can be found
here.
The Postgres Operator can be deployed in the following ways:
- Manual deployment
- Kustomization
- Helm chart
The Postgres Operator can be installed simply by applying yaml manifests. Note,
we provide the /manifests
directory as an example only; you should consider
adjusting the manifests to your K8s environment (e.g. namespaces).
# First, clone the repository and change to the directory
git clone https://github.com/zalando/postgres-operator.git
cd postgres-operator
# apply the manifests in the following order
kubectl create -f manifests/configmap.yaml # configuration
kubectl create -f manifests/operator-service-account-rbac.yaml # identity and permissions
kubectl create -f manifests/postgres-operator.yaml # deployment
kubectl create -f manifests/api-service.yaml # operator API to be used by UI
There is a Kustomization manifest that combines the mentioned resources (except for the CRD) - it can be used with kubectl 1.14 or newer as easy as:
kubectl apply -k github.com/zalando/postgres-operator/manifests
For convenience, we have automated starting the operator with minikube using the
run_operator_locally
script. It applies the acid-minimal-cluster
.
manifest.
./run_operator_locally.sh
Alternatively, the operator can be installed by using the provided Helm chart which saves you the manual steps. Clone this repo and change directory to the repo root. With Helm v3 installed you should be able to run:
helm install postgres-operator ./charts/postgres-operator
To use CRD-based configuration you need to specify the values-crd yaml file.
helm install postgres-operator ./charts/postgres-operator -f ./charts/postgres-operator/values-crd.yaml
The chart works with both Helm 2 and Helm 3. The crd-install
hook from v2 will
be skipped with warning when using v3. Documentation for installing applications
with Helm 2 can be found in the v2 docs.
Starting the operator may take a few seconds. Check if the operator pod is running before applying a Postgres cluster manifest.
# if you've created the operator using yaml manifests
kubectl get pod -l name=postgres-operator
# if you've created the operator using helm chart
kubectl get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=postgres-operator
If the operator doesn't get into Running
state, either check the latest K8s
events of the deployment or pod with kubectl describe
or inspect the operator
logs:
kubectl logs "$(kubectl get pod -l name=postgres-operator --output='name')"
In the following paragraphs we describe how to access and manage PostgreSQL clusters from the command line with kubectl. But it can also be done from the browser-based Postgres Operator UI. Before deploying the UI make sure the operator is running and its REST API is reachable through a K8s service. The URL to this API must be configured in the deployment manifest of the UI.
To deploy the UI simply apply all its manifests files or use the UI helm chart:
# manual deployment
kubectl apply -f ui/manifests/
# or kustomization
kubectl apply -k github.com/zalando/postgres-operator/ui/manifests
# or helm chart
helm install postgres-operator-ui ./charts/postgres-operator-ui
Like with the operator, check if the UI pod gets into Running
state:
# if you've created the operator using yaml manifests
kubectl get pod -l name=postgres-operator-ui
# if you've created the operator using helm chart
kubectl get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=postgres-operator-ui
You can now access the web interface by port forwarding the UI pod (mind the
label selector) and enter localhost:8081
in your browser:
kubectl port-forward svc/postgres-operator-ui 8081:80
Available option are explained in detail in the UI docs.
If the operator pod is running it listens to new events regarding postgresql
resources. Now, it's time to submit your first Postgres cluster manifest.
# create a Postgres cluster
kubectl create -f manifests/minimal-postgres-manifest.yaml
After the cluster manifest is submitted and passed the validation the operator
will create Service and Endpoint resources and a StatefulSet which spins up new
Pod(s) given the number of instances specified in the manifest. All resources
are named like the cluster. The database pods can be identified by their number
suffix, starting from -0
. They run the Spilo
container image by Zalando. As for the services and endpoints, there will be one
for the master pod and another one for all the replicas (-repl
suffix). Check
if all components are coming up. Use the label application=spilo
to filter and
list the label spilo-role
to see who is currently the master.
# check the deployed cluster
kubectl get postgresql
# check created database pods
kubectl get pods -l application=spilo -L spilo-role
# check created service resources
kubectl get svc -l application=spilo -L spilo-role
You can create a port-forward on a database pod to connect to Postgres. See the user guide for instructions. With minikube it's also easy to retrieve the connections string from the K8s service that is pointing to the master pod:
export HOST_PORT=$(minikube service acid-minimal-cluster --url | sed 's,.*/,,')
export PGHOST=$(echo $HOST_PORT | cut -d: -f 1)
export PGPORT=$(echo $HOST_PORT | cut -d: -f 2)
Retrieve the password from the K8s Secret that is created in your cluster. Non-encrypted connections are rejected by default, so set the SSL mode to require:
export PGPASSWORD=$(kubectl get secret postgres.acid-minimal-cluster.credentials -o 'jsonpath={.data.password}' | base64 -d)
export PGSSLMODE=require
psql -U postgres
To delete a Postgres cluster simply delete the postgresql
custom resource.
kubectl delete postgresql acid-minimal-cluster
This should remove the associated StatefulSet, database Pods, Services and Endpoints. The PersistentVolumes are released and the PodDisruptionBudget is deleted. Secrets however are not deleted and backups will remain in place.
When deleting a cluster while it is still starting up or got stuck during that
phase it can happen
that the postgresql
resource is deleted leaving orphaned components behind.
This can cause troubles when creating a new Postgres cluster. For a fresh setup
you can delete your local minikube or kind cluster and start again.