E.4. Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.21.1

Release date: 2021-02-18

E.4.1. Overview

This release is based on PostgreSQL 9.6.21 and Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.20.1. All improvements inherited from PostgreSQL 9.6.21 are listed in PostgreSQL 9.6.21 Release Notes. Other major changes and enhancements are as follows:

  • Upgraded pg_probackup to the latest version 2.4.10. Major improvements over the previously included version 2.4.2 are as follows:

    • Incremental restore with --force flag now allows you to overwrite the contents of the directory specified by PGDATA in case of system ID mismatch. Previously this resulted in an error.

    • It is now possible to restore and validate backups from a read-only filesystem.

    • In-place merge is now disabled only if the storage format changed.

    • Non-exclusive backup locks are implemented, which enables concurrent validate and restore. Backup shared locks are now released at the process exit.

    • Streamed WAL segments are now added to the backup filelist on the fly and fsynced to disk at the end of the backup.

    See pg_probackup documentation for details.

  • Added pgpro_controldata utility to display control information of a PostgreSQL/Postgres Pro database cluster and compatibility information for a cluster and/or server.

  • Added the pg_snapshot_any function to help superusers explore corrupted databases. See Section 9.26.11 for details.

E.4.2. Migration to Version 9.6.21.1

Depending on your current installation, the upgrade procedure will differ.

To upgrade from a Postgres Pro Standard version based on any previous PostgreSQL major release, make sure you have installed its latest minor version, and then perform a dump/restore using pg_dumpall or use the pg_upgrade utility.

To upgrade from a Postgres Pro Standard version based on the same PostgreSQL major release, a dump/restore is not required.

While functions numeric_eq, numeric_ne, numeric_gt, numeric_ge, numeric_lt, and numeric_le are actually leakproof, they were not marked as such in Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.16.1 or lower, which could lead to incorrect query optimization. In particular, it negatively affected query execution if row-level security policy was in use. Version 9.6.17.1 repairs this issue for new installations by correcting the initial catalog data, but existing installations will still have incorrect markings unless you update pg_proc entries for these functions. You can run pg_upgrade to upgrade your server instance to a version containing the corrected initial data, or manually correct these entries in each database of the installation using the ALTER FUNCTION command. For example:

ALTER FUNCTION pg_catalog.numeric_eq LEAKPROOF

Since pg_probackup delivery model changed in Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.12.1, when upgrading from a lower version on ALT Linux and Debian-based systems, run apt dist-upgrade (or apt-get dist-upgrade) to ensure that all new dependencies are handled correctly. On Windows, you have to run a separate pg_probackup installer to complete the upgrade.

When upgrading from versions 9.6.8.2 or lower, you must call the REINDEX command for indexes that used mchar or mvarchar types.

If you are upgrading from Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.7.1 or lower, you must also use the pgpro_upgrade script provided in this distribution. This script updates metadata information to handle catalog number format change introduced after Postgres Pro Standard 9.6.4.1, as well as rename the pgpro_build function to pgpro_source_id. The pgpro_upgrade script is usually run automatically. However, if you have created your database in a non-default location, you must run the pgpro_upgrade script manually.

Note

If you run pgpro_upgrade manually, you must stop postgres service. The script must be run on behalf of the user owning the database (typically postgres). Running pgpro_upgrade as root will result in an error. For details, see pgpro_upgrade.

Note

On RPM-based Linux distributions, if you are upgrading from version 9.6.2.1 or lower, make sure to move the data directory from pgsql to the pgpro directory before running the pgpro_upgrade script.

To migrate from vanilla PostgreSQL 9.6.x, make sure you have installed its latest available minor version and then perform a dump/restore using pg_dumpall.