egorius

https://postgr.es/p/79c

• The Post will be Continuously Updated.

Postgres community bonding

The first phase of GSoC is Community Bonding where mentee gets to know the community of his Organization.

For Postgres i started searching for the communication channels used by contributors, i found out about Postgres mailing lists which unfortuanetly i hadn’t involved into that much till now, but also i discovered the PostgreSQL Hacking Discord channel and the Hacking Workshops they host every month to study and discuss PostgreSQL topics was a great thing for me.

Then i started searching about Currently on going PostgreSQL projects and unforuantely found out that there is not that much low hanging fruits in the main PostgreSQL engine itself but the Good part is that there was a lot of other Projects that integrate with Postgres and build on top of it which had a good amount of starter issues to help aspiring contributors get started one of them was pg_duckdb The official PostgreSQL extension for DuckDB where i opened a PR adding sqlsmith CI test

Coding Period

By The start of the coding period i started digging more into the pgwatch & pgwatch_rpc_server code and testing them with various workloads and options to enhance my understanding for their workflow and Good News! this give back Great results.

1. discovered a segmentation violation issue that got immediately resolved and published under the pgwatch v3.4.0 release

• Also reading the code got me to have some enhancements ideas that i discussed with the maintainers and most of them were approved.
  1. change Json sink to use one global encoder
  2. define sync metric operations as consts
  3. move repeated rpc server registration logic to global listener
  4. modify the handle sync metric function to listen repeatedly

Now i needed to start working on my first milestone which was adding TLS encryption support to RPC channel, similar to all the things i have worked on here i sp

https://postgr.es/p/79c

https://postgr.es/p/79b

When running a PostgreSQL database in a High Availability (HA) cluster, it’s easy to assume that having multiple nodes means your data is safe. But HA is not a replacement for backups. If someone accidentally deletes important data or runs a wrong update query, that change will quickly spread to all nodes in the cluster. Without proper safeguards, that data is gone everywhere. In these cases, only a backup can help you restore what was lost.

The case mentioned above isn’t the only reason backups are important. In fact, many industries have strict compliance requirements that make regular backups mandatory. This makes backups essential not just for recovering lost data, but also for meeting regulatory standards.

Barman is a popular tool in the PostgreSQL ecosystem for managing backups, especially in High Availability (HA) environments. It’s known for being easy to set up and for offering multiple types and modes of backups. However, this flexibility can also be a bit overwhelming at first. That’s why I’m writing this blog to break down each backup option in a simple and clear way, so you can choose the one that best fits your business needs.

1. Backup Type in Barman

Barman primarily supports three backup types through various combinations of backup methods. The table below highlights the/z key differences between them

https://postgr.es/p/79b

https://postgr.es/p/798

    Even the most experienced database professionals are known to feel a little anxious when peering into an unfamiliar database. Hopefully, they inspect to see how the data is normalized and how the various tables are combined to answer complex queries.  Entity Relationship Maps (ERM) provide a visual overview of how tables are related and can document the structure of the data.

    The Community Edition of DBeaver can provide an ERM easily.  First, connect to the database. Right-click on the 'Tables' and then select 'View Diagram'.

The ERM is then displayed.

And it gets better! If you are not sure how two tables are joined? Click on the link between the tables, and the names of the columns you will want to use in your JOIN statement are highlighted.

Conclusion

    Exploring an unfamiliar database can be daunting. But Entity Relationship Maps provide a way to navigate the territory. And Dbeaver is a fantastic tool for working with databases.

https://postgr.es/p/798

https://postgr.es/p/796

The registration for PGConf.EU 2025, which will take place on 21-24 October in Riga, is now open.

We have a limited number of tickets available for purchase with the discount code EARLYBIRD.

This year, the first day of training sessions has been replaced with a Community Events Day. This day has a more limited space, and can be booked as part of the conference registration process or added later, as long as seats last.

We hope you will be able to join us in Riga in October!

https://postgr.es/p/796