Why don't people upgrade? Why don't we ask why upgrading is necessary? I understand that Postgres is free software, and if you choose to use it, you're signing up for whatever upgrade cadence the developers give you. But really, I with the developers would spend a bit more time patching "old" versions. 6 years is really too short a time to have to do an upgrade, especially if you have many database servers.
Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
151–160 of 452 posts
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#152Lots of dogmatism in this discussion, it seems. A couple of things: 1. Most psql deployments are not exposed to the interwebz, they are typically only accessible to the applications that need them by virtue of network setup (firewalls etc). This limits the attack vector to whatever the application does. Good. 2. Distro vendors (RHEL et al) often stick to major psql release for the lifecycle of the OS version. If the…
> 3. While upgrades aren't hard, they're not easy either.
And in my experience, apart from ease of use there's also a major trust issue here. If you're upgrading your app server framework/language, it's easy enough to do a rollback. With databases, people are worried that they might not notice errors right away and then you have to merge the data accumulated since the upgrade with the last backup in case of a rollback.
Not saying that this is entirely rational...
Also, new features on the SQL level are hard to sell if all you're doing is lowest common denominator ORM ("New window functions and faster lateral joins? But we're doing all that in our code!").
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#153Lots of dogmatism in this discussion, it seems. A couple of things: 1. Most psql deployments are not exposed to the interwebz, they are typically only accessible to the applications that need them by virtue of network setup (firewalls etc). This limits the attack vector to whatever the application does. Good. 2. Distro vendors (RHEL et al) often stick to major psql release for the lifecycle of the OS version. If the…
> 4. Psql is pretty much feature complete for many workloads, and pretty stable in general. For many people, there is little need to chase the latest major version.
To drive this a little further, "latest and greatest" doesn't always apply. I've chosen software - even databases - for greenfield deployments one or two releases behind for their known characteristics.
Stability doesn't imply perfection, but rather, predictability.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always wondered why Postgres is so insanely popular. I mean it has some nice things like very powerful support for a very comprehensive subset of SQL functionality, but most apps don't need all that. It really feels like early 1990s vintage Unix software. It's clunky and arcane and it's hard to feel confident doing anything complex with it.
* transactional DDL * comprehensive transaction model using different modes * PostGIS and lots of other great extensions * supports most of the current SQL standard and is clear on interpretation of edge-cases in the documentation * support for writing stored procedures in any major programming language * many useful functions regarding dates, sets, ranges, json, xml, ... * custom datatypes * extremely thought-out an…
> * custom datatypes
Good in theory. But last time I checked the main libs to connect to pgsql, everything you get back from the database are strings. So you need something in your app to convert those strings to the equivalent data structures.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always wondered why Postgres is so insanely popular. I mean it has some nice things like very powerful support for a very comprehensive subset of SQL functionality, but most apps don't need all that. It really feels like early 1990s vintage Unix software. It's clunky and arcane and it's hard to feel confident doing anything complex with it.
> It really feels like early 1990s vintage Unix software. It's clunky and arcane and it's hard to feel confident doing anything complex with it. How software "feels" is subjective. Can you be more specific?
Having to tinker with pg_hba.conf files on the server so manage how users can connect.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#156Because the actual process of upgrading Postgres is terrible.
I say this as someone who absolutely loves using it, but the actual process of upgrading Postgres is something that takes significant downtime, is error-prone and you're often better off just dumping all the databases and reimporting them in a new folder. (A good idea in general since it'll vacuum and compact indexes as well if you do it, combining a few maintenance routines in your upgrade path.)
It requires having the previous version of Postgres installed, something which can mess with a number of distro policies (not to mention docker, which is the most popular way to deploy software that will typically rely on Postgres), and unlike most software with that issue, Postgres is software you want to be managed by your distro.
Therefore, most people only upgrade by necessity - when their distro forces the upgrade or the version they're using reaches EOL.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#157i ll tell you why from my end. I installed Postgres14 via homebrew many years ago on my Apple M1 mac mini. I searched a lot on how to "upgrade" this installation but found nothing. I have a few databases running with data on it which I can't afford to lose if something goes down for more than 1 hour. I wish someone would guide me on how to actually install a newer postgres such as v17 without breaking an existing v14…
This kind of sounds like a Homebrew issue…?
I’ve run multiple variants of PostgreSQL on my MacBook under MacPorts. Can’t even remember the last time I thought about it, to be honest.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#158Because they already work great, you are unlikly to get forced to upgrade, and they are the part of your system doing the most critical work under the heviest load.
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the SQL alternative?
Hopefully Edgedb. It could make most ORMs and heavyweight web frameworks redundant, maybe some BI tools and jobs too. https://www.edgedb.com/
Looks kind of like PRQL https://github.com/PRQL/prql
Re: Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 3. While upgrades aren't hard, they're not easy either I guess it depends on scale? I was surprised how easy it was on Ubuntu. There was an automatic migration script, and it worked. Took less than 5 minutes to upgrade. Sure, there was downtime, but I think most applications out there can live with scheduled downtime of a few minutes. If you can't have downtime, then nothing is easy.
Lots of companies pretend like they can't afford 5 minutes of scheduled downtime. Then they end up with 12 hours of unscheduled downtime when shtf.
For SRE (site reliability engineering) the term of art is 'error budget'
To others reading, be mindful: database upgrade times depend greatly on the data stored within them/where/who is using them. Your development environment doesn't represent production. If the distinction even exists!
A five minute upgrade can become indefinite with a single lock [row/table, depending on the storage engine/etc]