module-postgresql

postgresql

####Table of Contents

1. Overview - What is the PostgreSQL module?
2. Module Description - What does the module do?
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with PostgreSQL module
4. Usage - The classes and parameters available for configuration
5. Implementation - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module
8. Disclaimer - Licensing information
9. Transfer Notice - Notice of authorship change
10. Contributors - List of module contributors
11. Release Notes - Notes on the most recent updates to the module

Overview

The PostgreSQL module allows you to easily manage postgres databases with Puppet.

Module Description

PostgreSQL is a high-performance, free, open-source relational database server. The postgresql module allows you to manage PostgreSQL packages and services on several operating systems, while also supporting basic management of PostgreSQL databases and users. The module offers support for managing firewall for postgres ports on RedHat-based distros, as well as support for basic management of common security settings.

Setup

What puppetlabs-PostgreSQL affects:

• package/service/configuration files for PostgreSQL
• listened-to ports
• system firewall (optional)
• IP and mask (optional)
  

Introductory Questions

The postgresql module offers many security configuration settings. Before getting started, you will want to consider:

• Do you want/need to allow remote connections?
  • If yes, what about TCP connections?
• Would you prefer to work around your current firewall settings or overwrite some of them?
• How restrictive do you want the database superuser's permissions to be?

Your answers to these questions will determine which of the module's parameters you'll want to specify values for.

###Configuring the server

The main configuration you’ll need to do will be around the postgresql::server class. The default parameters are reasonable, but fairly restrictive regarding permissions for who can connect and from where. To manage a PostgreSQL server with sane defaults:

include postgresql::server    

For a more customized, less restrictive configuration:

class { 'postgresql::server':
  config_hash => {
    'ip_mask_deny_postgres_user' => '0.0.0.0/32',
    'ip_mask_allow_all_users'    => '0.0.0.0/0',
    'listen_addresses'           => '*',
    'ipv4acls'                   => ['hostssl all johndoe 192.168.0.0/24 cert'],
    'manage_redhat_firewall'     => true,
    'postgres_password'          => 'TPSrep0rt!',
  },
}

Once you've completed your configuration of postgresql::server, you can test out your settings from the command line:

$ psql -h localhost -U postgres
$ psql -h my.postgres.server -U

If you get an error message from these commands, it means that your permissions are set in a way that restricts access from where you’re trying to connect. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your goals.

Advanced configuration setting parameters can be placed into postgresql_puppet_extras.conf (located in the same folder as postgresql.conf). You can manage that file as a normal puppet file resource, or however you see fit; which gives you complete control over the settings. Any value you specify in that file will override any existing value set in the templated version.
For more details about server configuration parameters see http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/runtime-config.html.

###Configuring the database

There are many ways to set up a postgres database using the postgresql::db class. For instance, to set up a database for PuppetDB (this assumes you’ve already got the postgresql::server set up to your liking in your manifest, as discussed above):

postgresql::db { 'mydatabasename':
  user     => 'mydatabaseuser',
  password => 'mypassword'
}

To manage users, roles and permissions:

postgresql::database_user{'marmot':
  password => 'foo',
}

postgresql::database_grant{'test1':
  privilege   => 'ALL',
  db          => 'test1',
  role        => 'dan',
}

In this example, you would grant ALL privileges on the test1 database to the user or group specified by dan.

At this point, you would just need to plunk these database name/username/password values into your PuppetDB config files, and you are good to go.

Usage

The postgresql module comes with many options for configuring the server. While you are unlikely to use all of the below settings, they allow you a decent amount of control over your security settings.

###postgresql::server Here are the options that you can set in the config_hash parameter of postgresql::server:

####postgres_password This value defaults to 'undef', meaning the “super user” account in the postgres database is a user called ‘postgres’ and this account does not have a password. If you provide this setting, the module will set the password for the ‘postgres’ user to your specified value.

####listen_addresses This value defaults to 'localhost', meaning the postgres server will only accept connections from localhost. If you’d like to be able to connect to postgres from remote machines, you can override this setting. A value of ‘*’ will tell postgres to accept connections from any remote machine. Alternately, you can specify a comma-separated list of hostnames or IP addresses. (For more info, have a look at the postgresql.conf file from your system’s postgres package).

####manage_redhat_firewall This value defaults to 'false'. Many RedHat-based distros ship with a fairly restrictive firewall configuration which will block the port that postgres tries to listen on. If you’d like for the puppet module to open this port for you (using the puppetlabs-firewall module), change this value to true. [This parameter is likely to change in future versions. Possible changes include support for non-RedHat systems and finer-grained control over the firewall rule (currently, it simply opens up the postgres port to all TCP connections).]

####ip_mask_allow_all_users
This value defaults to '127.0.0.1/32'. By default, Postgres does not allow any database user accounts to connect via TCP from remote machines. If you’d like to allow them to, you can override this setting. You might set it to “0.0.0.0/0” to allow database users to connect from any remote machine, or “192.168.0.0/16” to allow connections from any machine on your local 192.168 subnet.

####ip_mask_deny_postgres_user This value defaults to '0.0.0.0/0'. Sometimes it can be useful to block the superuser account from remote connections if you are allowing other database users to connect remotely. Set this to an IP and mask for which you want to deny connections by the postgres superuser account. So, e.g., the default value of “0.0.0.0/0” will match any remote IP and deny access, so the postgres user won’t be able to connect remotely at all. Conversely, a value of “0.0.0.0/32” would not match any remote IP, and thus the deny rule will not be applied and the postgres user will be allowed to connect.

####pg_hba_conf_path
If, for some reason, your system stores the postgres pg_hba.conf file in a non-standard location, you can override the path here.

####postgresql_conf_path
If, for some reason, your system stores the postgres postgresql.conf file in a non-standard location, you can override the path here.

####ipv4acls
List of strings for access control for connection method, users, databases, IPv4 addresses; see postgresql documentation about pg_hba.conf for information (please note that the link will take you to documentation for the most recent version of Postgres, however links for earlier versions can be found on that page).

####ipv6acls
List of strings for access control for connection method, users, databases, IPv6 addresses; see postgresql documentation about pg_hba.conf for information (please note that the link will take you to documentation for the most recent version of Postgres, however links for earlier versions can be found on that page).

###postgresql::client

This class installs postgresql client software. Alter the following parameters if you have a custom version you would like to install (Note: don't forget to make sure to add any necessary yum or apt repositories if specifying a custom version):

####package_name The name of the postgresql client package.

####package_ensure The ensure parameter passed on to postgresql client package resource.

Custom Functions

If you need to generate a postgres encrypted password, use postgresql_password. You can call it from your production manifests if you don’t mind them containing the clear text versions of your passwords, or you can call it from the command line and then copy and paste the encrypted password into your manifest:

$ puppet apply --execute 'notify { "test": message => postgresql_password("username", "password") }'

Tests

There are two types of tests distributed with the module. The first set is the “traditional” Puppet manifest-style smoke tests. You can use these to experiment with the module on a virtual machine or other test environment, via puppet apply. You should see the following files in the tests directory.

In addition to these manifest-based smoke tests, there are some ruby rspec tests in the spec directory. These tests run against a VirtualBox VM, so they are actually testing the live application of the module on a real, running system. To do this, you must install and setup an RVM with vagrant, sahara, and rspec:

$ curl -L get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
$ rvm install 1.9.3
$ rvm use --create 1.9.3@puppet-postgresql
$ bundle install 

Run the system tests:

$ rake spec:system

The system test suite will snapshot the VM and rollback between each test.

We also have some unit tests that utilize rspec-puppet for faster iteration if required:

$ rake spec

The unit tests are ran in Travis-CI as well, if you want to see the results of your own tests regsiter the service hook through Travis-CI via the accounts section for your Github clone of this project.

Implementation

Resource Overview

postgresql

This class is used to manage the basic postgresql client packages (which include the psql command line tool and other utilities).

postgresql::database

This defined type can be used to create a database with no users and no permissions, which is a rare use case.

postgresql::tablespace

This defined type can be used to create a tablespace.

postgresql_psql

This defined type manages the command line tool for the postgresql module.

Custom Facts

postgres_default_version

The module provides a Facter fact that can be used to determine what the default version of postgres is for your operating system/distribution. Depending on the distribution, it might be 8.1, 8.4, 9.1, or possibly another version. This can be useful in a few cases, like when building path strings for the postgres directories.

Limitations

Works with versions of PostgreSQL from 8.1 through 9.2.

Development

Puppet Labs modules on the Puppet Forge are open projects, and community contributions are essential for keeping them great. We can’t access the huge number of platforms and myriad of hardware, software, and deployment configurations that Puppet is intended to serve.

We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes so that our modules work in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

You can read the complete module contribution guide on the Puppet Labs wiki.

Disclaimer

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.

Transfer Notice

This Puppet module was originally authored by Inkling Systems. The maintainer preferred that Puppet Labs take ownership of the module for future improvement and maintenance as Puppet Labs is using it in the PuppetDB module. Existing pull requests and issues were transferred over, please fork and continue to contribute here instead of Inkling. Previously: https://github.com/inkling/puppet-postgresql

Contributors

• Andrew Moon
• Kenn Knowles (@kennknowles)
• Adrien Thebo
• Albert Koch
• Andreas Ntaflos
• Brett Porter
• Chris Price
• dharwood
• Etienne Pelletier
• Florin Broasca
• Henrik
• Hunter Haugen
• Jari Bakken
• Jordi Boggiano
• Ken Barber
• nzakaria
• Richard Arends
• Spenser Gilliland
• stormcrow
• William Van Hevelingen

Release Notes

2.0.1

Minor bugfix release.

2013-01-16 - Chris Price chris@puppetlabs.com * Fix revoke command in database.pp to support postgres 8.1 (43ded42)

2013-01-15 - Jordi Boggiano j.boggiano@seld.be * Add support for ubuntu 12.10 status (3504405)

2.0.0

Notable features:

Add support for versions of postgres other than the system default version (which varies depending on OS distro). This includes optional support for automatically managing the package repo for the “official” postgres yum/apt repos. (Major thanks to Etienne Pelletier epelletier@maestrodev.com and Ken Barber ken@bob.sh for their tireless efforts and patience on this feature set!) For example usage see tests/official-postgresql-repos.pp.

Add some support for Debian Wheezy and Ubuntu Quantal

Add new postgres_psql type with a Ruby provider, to replace the old exec-based psql type. This gives us much more flexibility around executing SQL statements and controlling their logging / reports output.

Major refactor of the “spec” tests–which are actually more like acceptance tests. We now support testing against multiple OS distros via vagrant, and the framework is in place to allow us to very easily add more distros. Currently testing against Cent6 and Ubuntu 10.04.

Fixed a bug that was preventing multiple databases from being owned by the same user (9adcd182f8 - Etienne Pelletier epelletier@maestrodev.com)

Add support for ACLs for finer-grained control of user/interface access (b8389d19ad - dharwood harwoodd@cat.pdx.edu)

Many other bug fixes and improvements!