Release notes for CloudNativePG 1.22

History of user-visible changes in the 1.22 minor release of CloudNativePG.

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

Version 1.22.5

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).
• Exclude immutable databases from pg_database metric monitoring and alerting processes (#4980).
• Removed unnecessary permissions from the operator service account (#4911).
• 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 1.22.4

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 1.22.3

Release date: Apr 24, 2024

Enhancements:

• 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)
• 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:

• The Grafana dashboard now resides at https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/grafana-dashboards (#4154)

Version 1.22.2

Release date: Mar 14, 2024

Enhancements

• Allow customization of the wal_level GUC in PostgreSQL (#4020)
• Add the cnpg.io/skipWalArchiving annotation to disable WAL archiving when set to enabled (#4055)
• Enrich the cnpg plugin for kubectl with the publication and subscription command groups to imperatively set up PostgreSQL native logical replication (#4052)
• Allow customization of CERTIFICATE_DURATION and EXPIRING_CHECK_THRESHOLD for automated management of TLS certificates handled by the operator (#3686)
• Retrieve the correct architecture's binary from the corresponding catalog in the running operator image during in-place updates, enabling the operator to inject the correct binary into any Pod with a supported architecture (#3840)
• Introduce initial support for tab-completion with the cnpg plugin for kubectl (#3875)

Fixes

• Properly synchronize PVC group labels with those on the pods, a critical aspect when all pods are deleted and the operator needs to decide which Pod to recreate first (#3930)
• Disable wal_sender_timeout when cloning a replica to prevent timeout errors due to slow connections (#4080)
• Ensure that volume snapshots are ready before initiating recovery bootstrap procedures, preventing an error condition where recovery with incomplete backups could enter an error loop (#3663)
• Prevent an error loop when unsetting connection limits in managed roles (#3832)
• Resolve a corner case in hibernation where the instance pod has been deleted, but the cluster status still has the hibernation condition set to false (#3970)
• Correctly detect Google Cloud capabilities for Barman Cloud (#3931)

Security

• Use Role instead of ClusterRole for operator permissions in OLM, requiring fewer privileges when installed on a per-namespace basis (#3855, #3990)
• Enforce fully-qualified object names in SQL queries for the PgBouncer pooler (#4080)

Changes

• Follow Kubernetes recommendations to switch from client-side to server-side application of manifests, requiring the --server-side option by default when installing the operator (#3729).
• Set the default operand image to PostgreSQL 16.2 (#3823).

Version 1.22.1

Release date: Feb 2, 2024

Enhancements:

• Tailor ephemeral volume storage in a Postgres cluster using a claim template through the ephemeralVolumeSource option (#3678)
• Introduce the pgadmin4 command in the cnpg plugin for kubectl, providing a straightforward method to demonstrate connecting to a given database cluster and navigate its content in a local environment such as kind - for evaluation purposes only (#3701)
• Allow customization of PostgreSQL's ident map file via the .spec.postgresql.pg_ident stanza, through a list of user name maps (#3534)

Fixes:

• Prevent an unrecoverable issue with pg_rewind failing due to postgresql.auto.conf being read-only on clusters where the ALTER SYSTEM SQL command is disabled - the default (#3728)
• Proper recovery of tablespaces from volume snapshots (#3682)
• Reduce the risk of disk space shortage when using the import facility of the initdb bootstrap method, by disabling the durability settings in the PostgreSQL instance for the duration of the import process (#3743)
• Avoid pod restart due to erroneous resource quantity comparisons, e.g. "1 != 1000m" (#3706)
• Properly escape reserved characters in pgpass connection fields (#3713)
• Prevent systematic rollout of pods due to considering zero and nil different values in .spec.projectedVolumeTemplate.sources (#3647)
• Ensure configuration coherence by pruning from postgresql.auto.conf any options now incorporated into override.conf (#3773)

Version 1.22.0

Release date: Dec 21, 2023

Features:

• Declarative Tablespaces: Introducing the tablespaces stanza in the Cluster spec, enabling comprehensive lifecycle management of PostgreSQL tablespaces for enhanced vertical scalability (#3410).

• Temporary Tablespaces: Adding the .spec.tablespaces[*].temporary option to facilitate the utilization of a tablespace for temporary database operations, by incorporating the name into the temp_tablespaces PostgreSQL parameter (#3464).

Security:

• By default, TLSv1.3 is now enforced on all PostgreSQL 12 or higher installations. Additionally, users can configure the ssl_ciphers, ssl_min_protocol_version, and ssl_max_protocol_version GUCs (#3408).
• Integration of Docker image scanning with Dockle and Snyk to enhance security measures (#3300).

Enhancements:

• Improved reconciliation of external clusters (#3533).
• Introduction of the ability to enable/disable the ALTER SYSTEM command (#3535).
• Support for Prometheus' dynamic relabeling through the podMonitorMetricRelabelings and podMonitorRelabelings options in the .spec.monitoring stanza of the Cluster and Pooler resources (#3075).
• Enhanced computation of the first recoverability point and last successful backup by considering volume snapshots alongside object-store backups (#2940).
• Elimination of the use of the PGPASSFILE environment variable when establishing a network connection to PostgreSQL (#3522).
• Improved cnpg report plugin command by collecting a cluster's PVCs (#3357).
• Enhancement of the cnpg status plugin command, providing information about managed roles, including alerts (#3310).
• Introduction of Red Hat UBI 8 container images for the operator, suitable for OLM deployments.
• Connection pooler:
  • Scaling down instances of a Pooler resource to 0 is now possible (#3517).
  • Addition of the cnpg.io/podRole label with a value of 'pooler' to every pooler deployment, differentiating them from instance pods (#3396).

Fixes:

• Reconciliation of metadata, annotations, and labels of PodDisruptionBudget resources (#3312 and #3434).
• Reconciliation of the metadata of the managed credential secrets (#3316).
• Resolution of a bug in the backup snapshot code where an error reading the body would be handled as an overall error, leaving the backup process indefinitely stuck (#3321).
• Implicit setting of online backup with the cnpg backup plugin command when either immediate-checkpoint or wait-for-archive options are requested (#3449).
• Disabling of wal_sender_timeout when joining through pg_basebackup (#3586)
• Reloading of secrets used by external clusters (#3565)
• Connection pooler:
  • Ensuring the controller watches all secrets owned by a Pooler resource (#3428).
  • Reconciliation of RoleBinding for Pooler resources (#3391).
  • Reconciliation of imagePullSecret for Pooler resources (#3389).
  • Reconciliation of the service of a Pooler and addition of the required labels (#3349).
  • Extension of Pooler labels to the deployment as well, not just the pods (#3350).

Changes:

• Default operand image set to PostgreSQL 16.1 (#3270).
• The ALTER SYSTEM command is now disabled by default (#3545).