####Table of Contents
- Overview - What is the PostgreSQL module?
- Module Description - What does the module do?
- Setup - The basics of getting started with PostgreSQL module
- Usage - The classes and parameters available for configuration
- Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
- Development - Guide for contributing to the module
- Disclaimer - Licensing information
- Transfer Notice - Notice of authorship change
- Contributors - List of module contributors
- Release Notes - Notes on the most recent updates to the module
The PostgreSQL module allows you to easily manage postgres databases with Puppet.
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.
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.
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.
###Class: postgresql This class is used to configure the cross-domain settings for this module.
###Class: 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).
###Class: 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.
###Class: postgresql::java This class installs postgresql bindings for Java (JDBC). 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 java package.
####package_ensure
The ensure parameter passed on to postgresql java package resource.
###Resource: postgresql::database This defined type can be used to create a database with no users and no permissions, which is a rare use case.
###Resource: postgresql::tablespace This defined type can be used to create a tablespace.
###Resource: postgresql::pg_hba_rule This defined type allows you to create an access rule for pg_hba.conf. For more details see the PostgreSQL documentation.
For example:
postgresql::pg_hba_rule { 'allow application network to access app database':
description => "Open up postgresql for access from 200.1.2.0/24",
type => 'host',
database => 'app',
user => 'app',
address => '200.1.2.0/24',
auth_method => 'md5',
}
This would create a ruleset in pg_hba.conf
similar to:
# Rule Name: allow application network to access app database
# Description: Open up postgresql for access from 200.1.2.0/24
# Order: 150
host app app 200.1.2.0/24 md5
####namevar
A unique identifier or short description for this rule. The namevar doesn't provide any functional usage, but it is stored in the comments of the produced pg_hba.conf so the originating resource can be identified.
####description
A longer description for this rule if required. Defaults to none
. This description is placed in the comments above the rule in pg_hba.conf
.
####type
The type of rule, this is usually one of: local, host, hostssl or hostnossl.
####database
A comma separated list of databases that this rule matches.
####user
A comma separated list of database users that this rule matches.
####address
If the type is not 'local' you can provide a CIDR based address here for rule matching.
####auth_method
The auth_method is described further in the pg_hba.conf documentation, but it provides the method that is used for authentication for the connection that this rule matches.
####auth_option
For certain auth_methods there are extra options that can be passed. Consult the PostgreSQL pg_hba.conf
documentation for further details.
####order
An order for placing the rule in pg_hba.conf. Defaults to 150
.
####target
This provides the target for the rule, and is generally an internal only property. Use with caution.
###Resource: postgresql_psql
This type manages the command line tool for the postgresql module.
###Function: postgresql_password
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") }'
###Function: postgresql_acls_to_resources_hash(acl_array, id, order_offset)
This internal function converts a list of pg_hba.conf based acls (passed in as an array of strings) to a format compatible with the postgresql::pg_hba_rule
resource.
This function should only be used internally by the module.
###Fact: 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.
Works with versions of PostgreSQL from 8.1 through 9.2.
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.
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.
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
- 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