postgresql.conf v23

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TPA creates a conf.d directory with various .conf files under it, and uses include_dir in the main postgresql.conf to use these additional configuration files.

The Postgres configuration files (postgresql.conf, pg_ident.conf, and pg_hba.conf) and the included files under conf.d are always stored in postgres_conf_dir. This is the same as postgres_data_dir by default, but you can set it to a different location if you wish to keep the configuration separate from the data directory.

The main configuration mechanism is to set variables directly:

cluster_vars:
  temp_buffers: 16MB
  log_connections: on
  autovacuum_vacuum_cost_limit: -1
  effective_cache_size: 4GB
  max_connections: 300
  max_wal_senders: 32

TPA splits the configuration up into multiple files. The two main files are 0000-tpa.conf and 0001-tpa_restart.conf. These contain settings that require a server reload or restart to change, respectively. During deployment, TPA will write any changes to the correct file and reload or restart Postgres as required.

TPA may use other files in certain circumstances (e.g., to configure optional extensions), but you do not ordinarily need to care where exactly a given parameter is set.

You should never edit any of the files under conf.d, because the changes may be overwritten when you next run tpaexec deploy.

postgres_conf_settings

TPA provides variables like temp_buffers and maintenance_work_mem that you can set directly for many, but not all, available postgresql.conf settings.

You can use postgres_conf_settings to set any parameters, whether recognised by TPA or not. You need to quote the value exactly as it would appear in postgresql.conf:

cluster_vars:
  effective_cache_size: 2GB
  postgres_conf_settings:
    effective_cache_size: 4GB
    authentication_timeout: 1min
    synchronous_standby_names: >-
      'any 2 ("first", "second", "third")'
    bdr.global_lock_statement_timeout: 60s

This is most useful with settings that TPA does not recognise natively, but you can use it for any parameter (e.g., effective_cache_size can be set as a variable, but authentication_timeout cannot).

These settings will be written to conf.d/9900-role-settings.conf, and therefore take priority over variables set in any other way.

If you make changes to values under postgres_conf_settings, TPA has no way to know whether the a reload is sufficient to effect the changes, or if a restart is required. Therefore it will always restart the server to activate the changes. This is why it's always preferable to use variables directly whenever possible.

shared_buffers

By default, TPA will set shared_buffers to 25% of the available memory (this is just a rule of thumb, not a recommendation). You can override this default by setting shared_buffers_ratio: 0.35 to use a different proportion, or by setting shared_buffers_mb: 796 to a specific number of MB, or by specifying an exact value directly, e.g., shared_buffers: "2GB".

effective_cache_size

By default, TPA will set effective_cache_size to 50% of the available memory. You can override this default by setting effective_cache_size_ratio: 0.35 to use a different proportion, or by setting effective_cache_size_mb: 796 to a specific number of MB, or by specifying an exact value directly, e.g., effective_cache_size: "8GB".

shared_preload_libraries

TPA maintains an internal list of extensions that require entries in shared_preload_libraries to work, and if you include any such extensions in postgres_extensions, it will automatically update shared_preload_libraries for you.

If you are using unrecognised extensions that require preloading, you can add them to preload_extensions:

cluster_vars:
  preload_extensions:
  - myext
  - otherext

Now if you add myext to postgres_extensions, shared_preload_libraries will include myext.

By default, shared_preload_libraries is set in conf.d/8888-shared_preload_libraries.conf.

Setting shared_preload_libraries directly as a variable is not supported. You should not normally need to set it, but if unavoidable, you can set a fully-quoted value under postgres_conf_settings. In this case, the value is set in conf.d/9900-tpa_postgres_conf_settings.conf.

Making changes by hand

There are two ways you can override anything in the TPA-generated configuration.

The first (and recommended) option is to use ALTER SYSTEM, which always takes precedence over anything in the configuration files:

# ALTER SYSTEM SET bdr.global_lock_statement_timeout TO '60s';

You can also edit conf.d/9999-override.conf:

$ echo "bdr.global_lock_statement_timeout='60s'" >> conf.d/9999-override.conf

All other files under conf.d are subject to be overwritten during deployment if the configuration changes, but TPA will never change 9999-override.conf after initially creating the empty file.

Depending on which settings you change, you may need to execute SELECT pg_reload_conf() or restart the server for the changes to take effect.

Generating postgresql.conf from scratch

By default, TPA will leave the default (i.e., initdb-generated) postgresql.conf file alone other than adding the include_dir. You should not ordinarily need to override this behaviour, but you can set postgres_conf_template to do so:

cluster_vars:
  postgres_conf_template: 'pgconf.j2'

Now the templates/pgconf.j2 in your cluster directory will be used to generate postgresql.conf.

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