Local connection with the postgres-util sidecar

Local Connection to the database has to be through the postgres-utils sidecar. This sidecar has all PostgreSQL binaries that are not present in the main container called patroni like the psql command.

This main container only have the required binaries and utilities to be able to configure the postgres cluster and the HA configuration.

Access to postgres-util sidecar

First we’ll check the if the container is present in the pods, for these example we have a cluster named stackgres, composed of three pods and installed in the default namespace:

kubectl get pods -n default -l app=StackGresCluster,cluster=true

output:

NAME          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
stackgres-0   5/5     Running   0          12m
stackgres-1   5/5     Running   0          12m
stackgres-2   5/5     Running   0          11m

As you can see in the list we have 5/5 containers (sidecars) ready. To check the list of these containers we can run the next command:

kubectl get pods stackgres-0 -n default -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].name}*'

output:

patroni envoy pgbouncer postgres-util prometheus-postgres-exporter

At this point we already checked that sidecar postgres-util is up and running. Now to access the postgres instance through this sidecar you have two options:

  1. Access directly from the kubectl commmand

    kubectl exec -it stackgres-0 -c postgres-util -- psql

    Then you will be into the postgresql console. You can access through the port 5432 this will connect via unix socket directly to postgres instances and will not required a password or you can use the port 6432 and the connection will be through the conection pooling tool (pgbouncer) and you will be ask for the password to connect.

    psql (11.6 OnGres Inc.)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

  2. Access the sidecar console

    To access the sidecar console run the next command:

    ➜ kubectl exec -it simple-0 -c postgres-util -- bash
bash-4.4$

    Note: You will be able to run any linux command and have access to all the PostgreSQL binaries.

    Connect to postgres console:

    bash-4.4$ psql
psql (12.3 OnGres Inc.)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#