The introduction of Pulp 3, which now uses Postgres, and upgrade of the Foreman web server stack to Rails 6 requires upgrade Postgres from the standard 9.2 version in base Enterprise Linux 7 to Postgres 10. This newer database version is provided via Software Collections (SCL). All RPM based installs will get Postgres 10 by default. Existing users will have their database upgrade automatically when using foreman-installer to upgrade between versions.
This change is targeted for release in 1.25.
Design
foreman-installer and puppet-foreman will be updated to configure Postgresql from SCL by default for new installs
support will be added to --upgrade flag in foreman-installer to upgrade existing Postgresql databases to new Postgresql 10 database
users of external databases will need to upgrade their database manually; docs will be provided to help with this scenario
What are the implications for Debian-based (if any)?
Distro version
PosgreSQL version
Debian Stretch
9.6
Debian Buster
11
Ubuntu Xenial
9.5
Ubuntu Bionic
10
All of these are still compatible with Rails 6. Considering Katello and friends aren’t shipped for Debian/Ubuntu I don’t expect this to be a major issue.
I would ask to keep this in mind though if someone wants to leverage advanced PostgreSQL functions in core with the drop of MySQL which also comes in 1.25.
@ekohl On EL7, we’ve previously taken approaches for supplying SCL configuration through hiera and facts within the installer to establish which version to use keeping puppet-foreman’s database setup minimal. However, this is a case where we need to enforce a minimum PostgreSQL version due to the Rails 6 upgrade. How should we be handling the various concerns?
Minimum PostgreSQL version
Use of SCL on EL7 RPM based system as a default for EL7 vs. use of PostgreSQL repositories
Future looking use of modules on EL8 and having a default
Given today our minimal PostgreSQL version is 9.2, we’d be just bumping the “minimal” to 9.5 then, right? Sounds fair to me.
On the other hand, apt.postgresql.org exists and provides PostgreSQL packages for Debian and Ubuntu (by the same people who maintain it in Debian). So we could ask users to move to minum 10 easily (IMHO).
Speaking of moving, how are PostgreSQL updates handled on Debian these days? The user runs pg_upgrade themself, right? There is no help/docs from Foreman?
I know how to update PostgreSQL clusters in Debian
I was wondering if there is anything from the Foreman side in terms of documentation/guidance, or the users are supposed to know everything them-self (which seems to be the case).
A new change has been pushed to the foreman-installer that enables PostgreSQL upgrades to 12 for Foreman and Katello scenarios. This upgrade is from 9.2 (via base OS RPMs) to 12. For those running any sort of nightly that has been upgraded to from 9.2 to 10 and want to upgrade to 12 you can do this manually (but I would recommend deploying a new nightly).
Don’t forget to install rh-postgresql12-postgresql-server before attempting the migration. If you have rh-postgresql10-postgresql-contrib installed, be sure to also install the 12 version of that before migrating.
PostgreSQL packages for Debian and Ubuntu (by the same people who maintain it in Debian). So we could ask users to move to minum 10 easily (IMHO).