Thread: Mixing DBLink versions
Hi All, Due to some historical idiosyncracies in our environment, we have a custom 8.3.7 database installation built from source. We'd like to install dblink into this, however there are some problems with doing so: 1) the 8.3.7 database was built on a CentOS 4 build box that has since gone away 2) currently we have only 8.3.9 code built against CentOS 5 3) the GCC compiler on CentOS 4 was quite old 4) possible API changes in dblink between those versions My question, how risky would it be to copy the dblink.so and .sql files from the CentOS 5 compilation of Postgres 8.3.9 overto the CentOS 4 compilation of Postgres 8.3.7? If runtime errors result, how severe would they be? I.e., would theytake down a postgres backend or possibly the postmaster daemon? Thanks, David
David Jantzen <djantzen@ql2.com> writes:
> Due to some historical idiosyncracies in our environment, we have a custom 8.3.7 database installation built from
source. We'd like to install dblink into this, however there are some problems with doing so:
> 1) the 8.3.7 database was built on a CentOS 4 build box that has since gone away
> 2) currently we have only 8.3.9 code built against CentOS 5
> 3) the GCC compiler on CentOS 4 was quite old
> 4) possible API changes in dblink between those versions
> My question, how risky would it be to copy the dblink.so and .sql files from the CentOS 5 compilation of Postgres
8.3.9over to the CentOS 4 compilation of Postgres 8.3.7? If runtime errors result, how severe would they be? I.e.,
wouldthey take down a postgres backend or possibly the postmaster daemon?
I think you've got a fundamental problem that you'd better fix. If you
are unable to rebuild the database from source then you are unable to
update --- and you are already three minor versions behind and missing
multiple security and crash-risk bug fixes. You're living on borrowed
time, and NEED to reinstantiate your ability to build for that platform.
Or move to a newer one.
FWIW, you could probably get back a RHEL4 build environment pretty
cheaply by setting up a suitable "mock" chroot on a recent Fedora
version (installed on the same type of hardware).
As for your direct question: no, I wouldn't count on that to work.
RHEL4 and RHEL5 had different glibc versions didn't they?
regards, tom lane
Thanks for the detailed response. We'll look at upgrading to 8.3.9 from an RPM. On Mar 15, 2010, at 6:01 PM, Tom Lane wrote: > David Jantzen <djantzen@ql2.com> writes: >> Due to some historical idiosyncracies in our environment, we have a custom 8.3.7 database installation built from source. We'd like to install dblink into this, however there are some problems with doing so: > >> 1) the 8.3.7 database was built on a CentOS 4 build box that has since gone away >> 2) currently we have only 8.3.9 code built against CentOS 5 >> 3) the GCC compiler on CentOS 4 was quite old >> 4) possible API changes in dblink between those versions > >> My question, how risky would it be to copy the dblink.so and .sql files from the CentOS 5 compilation of Postgres 8.3.9over to the CentOS 4 compilation of Postgres 8.3.7? If runtime errors result, how severe would they be? I.e., wouldthey take down a postgres backend or possibly the postmaster daemon? > > I think you've got a fundamental problem that you'd better fix. If you > are unable to rebuild the database from source then you are unable to > update --- and you are already three minor versions behind and missing > multiple security and crash-risk bug fixes. You're living on borrowed > time, and NEED to reinstantiate your ability to build for that platform. > Or move to a newer one. > > FWIW, you could probably get back a RHEL4 build environment pretty > cheaply by setting up a suitable "mock" chroot on a recent Fedora > version (installed on the same type of hardware). > > As for your direct question: no, I wouldn't count on that to work. > RHEL4 and RHEL5 had different glibc versions didn't they? > > regards, tom lane
On Mon, 2010-03-15 at 19:25 -0700, David Jantzen wrote: > We'll look at upgrading to 8.3.9 from an RPM. FWIW 8.3.10 was released today. -- Devrim GÜNDÜZ PostgreSQL Danışmanı/Consultant, Red Hat Certified Engineer PostgreSQL RPM Repository: http://yum.pgrpms.org Community: devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr http://www.gunduz.org Twitter: http://twitter.com/devrimgunduz