Release notes for CloudNativePG 1.23

History of user-visible changes in the 1.23 minor release of CloudNativePG.

For a complete list of changes, please refer to the commits on the release branch in GitHub.

Version 1.23.6

Release Date: December 23, 2024

Enhancements

• Enable customization of startup, liveness, and readiness probes through the .spec.probes stanza. (#6266)
• Add the cnpg.io/userType label to secrets generated for predefined users, specifically superuser and app. (#4392)
• Improved validation for the spec.schedule field in ScheduledBackups, raising warnings for potential misconfigurations. (#5396)
• cnpg plugin:
  • Honor the User-Agent header in HTTP requests with the API server. (#6153)

Bug Fixes

• Ensure the former primary flushes its WAL file queue to the archive before re-synchronizing as a replica, reducing recovery times and enhancing data consistency during failovers. (#6141)
• Clean the WAL volume along with the PGDATA volume during bootstrap. (#6265)
• Update the operator to set the cluster phase to Unrecoverable when all previously generated PersistentVolumeClaims are missing. (#6170)
• Fix the parsing of the synchronous_standby_names GUC when .spec.postgresql.synchronous.method is set to first. (#5955)
• Resolved a potential race condition when patching certain conditions in CRD statuses, improving reliability in concurrent updates. (#6328)
• Correct role changes to apply at the transaction level instead of the database context. (#6064)
• Remove the primary_slot_name definition from the override.conf file on the primary to ensure it is always empty. (#6219)
• Configure libpq environment variables, including PGHOST, in PgBouncer pods to enable seamless access to the pgbouncer virtual database using psql from within the container. (#6247)
• Remove unnecessary updates to the Cluster status when verifying changes in the image catalog. (#6277)
• Prevent panic during recovery from an external server without proper backup configuration. (#6300)
• Resolved a key collision issue in structured logs, where the name field was inconsistently used to log two distinct values. (#6324)
• Ensure proper quoting of the inRoles field in SQL statements to prevent syntax errors in generated SQL during role management. (#6346)
• cnpg plugin:
  • Ensure the kubectl context is properly passed in the psql command. (#6257)
  • Avoid displaying physical backups block when empty with status command. (#5998)

Version 1.23.5

Release date: Oct 16, 2024

Enhancements:

• Remove the use of pg_database_size from the status probe, as it caused high resource utilization by scanning the entire PGDATA directory to compute database sizes. The kubectl status plugin will now rely on du to provide detailed size information retrieval (#5689).
• Add the ability to configure the full_page_writes parameter in PostgreSQL. This setting defaults to on, in line with PostgreSQL's recommendations (#5516).
• Plugin:
  • Add the logs pretty command in the cnpg plugin to read a log stream from standard input and output a human-readable format, with options to filter log entries (#5770)
  • Enhance the status command by allowing multiple -v options to increase verbosity for more detailed output (#5765).
  • Add support for specifying a custom Docker image using the --image flag in the pgadmin4 plugin command, giving users control over the Docker image used for pgAdmin4 deployments (#5515).

Fixes:

• Resolve an issue with concurrent status updates when demoting a primary to a designated primary, ensuring smoother transitions during cluster role changes (#5755).
• Ensure that replica PodDisruptionBudgets (PDB) are removed when scaling down to two instances, enabling easier maintenance on the node hosting the replica (#5487).
• Prioritize full rollout over inplace restarts (#5407).
• Fix an issue that could lead to double failover in cases of lost connectivity (#5788).
• Correctly set the TMPDIR and PSQL_HISTORY environment variables for pods and jobs, improving temporary file and history management (#5503).
• Plugin:
  • Resolve a race condition in the logs cluster command (#5775).
  • Display the potential sync status in the status plugin (#5533).
  • Fix the issue where pods deployed by the pgadmin4 command didn’t have a writable home directory (#5800).

Supported versions

• PostgreSQL 17 (PostgreSQL 17.0 is the default image)

Version 1.23.4

Release date: Aug 22, 2024

Enhancements:

• cnpg plugin updates:
  • Enhance the install generate command by adding a --control-plane option, allowing deployment of the operator on control-plane nodes by setting node affinity and tolerations (#5271).
  • Enhance the destroy command to delete also any job related to the target instance (#5298).

Fixes:

• Synchronous replication self-healing checks now exclude terminated pods, focusing only on active and functional pods (#5210).
• The instance manager will now terminate all existing operator-related replication connections following a role change in a replica cluster (#5209).
• Allow setting smartShutdownTimeout to zero, enabling immediate fast shutdown and bypassing the smart shutdown process when required (#5347).

Version 1.23.3

Release date: Jul 29, 2024

Enhancements:

• Add transparent support for PostgreSQL 17's allow_alter_system parameter, enabling or disabling the ALTER SYSTEM command through the .spec.postgresql.enableAlterSystem option (#4921).
• Introduce the reconcilePodSpec annotation on the Cluster and Pooler resources to control the restart of pods following a change in the Pod specification (#5069).
• Support the new metrics introduced in PgBouncer 1.23 in the Pooler metrics collector (#5044).

Fixes:

• Enhance the mechanism for detecting Pods that have been terminated but not deleted during an eviction process, and extend the cleanup process during maintenance windows to include unschedulable Pods when the reusePVC flag is set to false (#2056).
• Disable pg_rewind execution for newly created replicas that employ VolumeSnapshot during bootstrapping to avoid introducing a new shutdown checkpoint entry in the WAL files. This ensures that replicas can reconnect to the primary without issues, which would otherwise be hindered by the additional checkpoint entry (#5081).
• Gracefully handle failures during the initialization of a new instance. Any remaining data from the failed initialization is now either removed or, if it's a valid PostgreSQL data directory, moved to a backup location to avoid possible data loss (#5112).
• Enhance the robustness of the immediate backups reconciler by implementing retry logic upon initial backup failure (#4982).
• Wait for the postmaster to shut down before starting it again (#4938).
• Ensure that the Pooler service template can override the default service (#4846).
• Exclude immutable databases from pg_database metric monitoring and alerting processes (#4980).
• Removed unnecessary permissions from the operator service account (#4911).
• Fix cluster role permissions for ClusterImageCatalogs (#5034).
• Ensure the operator initiates a rollout of the Pooler instance when the operator image is upgraded (#5006)
• Address race condition causing the readiness probe to incorrectly show "not ready" after a PostgreSQL restart, even when the postmaster was accessible (#4920).
• Prevent reconciliation of resources that aren't owned by a Pooler (#4967).
• Renew the certificates managed by the operator when the DNS Subject Alternative Names (SANs) are updated (#3269, #3319).
• Set PVC default AccessModes in the template only when unspecified (#4845).
• Gracefully handle unsatisfiable backup schedule (#5109).
• cnpg plugin:
• Properly handle errors during the status command execution.
• Support TLS in the status command (#4915).

Version 1.23.2

Release date: Jun 12, 2024

Enhancements:

• Enabled configuration of standby-sensitive parameters during recovery using a physical backup (#4564)

• Enabled the configuration of the liveness probe timeout via the .spec.livenessProbeTimeout option (#4719)

• cnpg plugin for kubectl:

  • Enhanced support for ANSI colors in the plugin by adding the --color option, which accepts always, never, and auto (default) as values (#4775)
  • The plugin is now available on Homebrew for macOS users (#4602)

Fixes:

• Prevented fenced instances from entering an unnecessary loop and consuming all available CPU (#4625)

• Resolved an issue where the instance manager on the primary would indefinitely wait for the instance to start after encountering a failure following a stop operation (#4434)

• Fixed an issue where the interaction between hot_standby_feedback and managed cluster-level replication slots was preventing the autovacuum from operating correctly; this issue was causing disk space to remain occupied by dead tuples (#4811)

• Fixed a panic in the backup controller that occurred when pod container statuses were missing (#4765)

• Prevented unnecessary shutdown of the instance manager (#4670)

• Prevented unnecessary reloads of PostgreSQL configuration when unchanged (#4531)

• Prevented unnecessary reloads of the ident map by ensuring a consistent and unique method of writing its content (#4648)

• Avoided conflicts during phase registration by patching the status of the resource instead of updating it (#4637)

• Implemented a timeout when restarting PostgreSQL and lifting fencing (#4504)

• Ensured that a replica cluster is restarted after promotion to properly set the archive mode (#4399)

• Removed an unneeded concurrent keep-alive routine that was causing random failures in volume snapshot backups (#4768)

• Ensured correct parsing of the additional rows field returned when the pgaudit.log_rows option was enabled, preventing audit logs from being incorrectly routed to the normal log stream (#4394)

• cnpg plugin for kubectl:

  • Resolved an issue with listing PDBs using the cnpg status command (#4530)

Changes

• Default operand image set to PostgreSQL 16.3 (#4584)
• Removed all RBAC requirements on namespace objects (#4753)

Version 1.23.1

Release date: Apr 29, 2024

Fixes:

• Corrects the reconciliation of PodMonitor resources, which was failing due to a regression (#4286)

Version 1.23.0

Release date: Apr 24, 2024

Features:

• PostgreSQL Image Catalogs: Introduced ClusterImageCatalog and ImageCatalog CRDs to manage operand container images based on PostgreSQL major version. This is facilitated through the Cluster's .spec.imageCatalogRef stanza. This feature provides an alternative to the imageName option and will eventually replace it as the default method to define operand container images.
• User-Defined Replication Slots: Enhanced the synchronization of physical replication slots to cover user-defined replication slots on the primary, via the newly introduced stanza replicationSlots.synchronizeReplicas.
• Configuration of Pod Disruption Budgets (PDB): Introduced the .spec.enablePDB field to disable PDBs on the primary instance, allowing proper eviction of the pod during maintenance operations. This is particularly useful for single-instance deployments. This feature is intended to replace the node maintenance window feature.

Enhancements:

• Users now have the capability to transition an existing cluster into replica mode, simplifying cross-datacenter switchover operations (#4261)
• Users can now customize the connection pooler service, including its type, labels, and annotations (#3384)
• Users can now configure the wal_log_hints PostgreSQL parameter (#4218) (#4218)
• Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN) in URIs for automatically generated secrets (#4095)
• Cleanup of instance Pods not owned by the Cluster during Cluster restore (#4141)
• Command output of the plugin’s status command to show the status of PDBs (#4319)
• Error detection when invoking barman-cloud-wal-restore in recovery bootstrap (#4101)

Fixes:

• Ensured that before a switchover, the elected replica is in streaming replication (#4288)
• Correctly handle parsing errors of instances' LSN when sorting them (#4283)
• Recreate the primary Pod if there are no healthy standbys available to promote (#4132)
• Cleanup PGDATA in case of failure of the restore job (#4151)
• Reload certificates on configuration update (#3705)
• cnpg plugin for kubectl:
  • Improve the arguments handling of destroy, fencing, and promote plugin commands (#4280)
  • Correctly handle the percentage of the backup progress in cnpg status (#4131)
  • Gracefully handle databases with no sequences in sync-sequences command (#4346)

Changes:

• Operator images are now based on gcr.io/distroless/static-debian12:nonroot (#4201)
• The Grafana dashboard now resides at https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/grafana-dashboards (#4154)