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PGBOUNCER.INI(5) Databases PGBOUNCER.INI(5)
NAME
pgbouncer.ini - configuration file for pgbouncer
DESCRIPTION
Config file is in "ini" format. Section names are between "[" and "]".
Lines starting with ";" or "#" are taken as comments and ignored. The
characters ";" and "#" are not recognized when they appear later in the
line.
GENERIC SETTINGS
logfile
Specifies log file. Log file is kept open so after rotation kill -HUP
or on console RELOAD; should be done. Note: On Windows machines, the
service must be stopped and started.
Default: not set.
pidfile
Specifies the pid file. Without a pidfile, daemonization is not
allowed.
Default: not set.
listen_addr
Specifies list of addresses, where to listen for TCP connections. You
may also use * meaning "listen on all addresses". When not set, only
Unix socket connections are allowed.
Addresses can be specified numerically (IPv4/IPv6) or by name.
Default: not set
listen_port
Which port to listen on. Applies to both TCP and Unix sockets.
Default: 6432
unix_socket_dir
Specifies location for Unix sockets. Applies to both listening socket
and server connections. If set to an empty string, Unix sockets are
disabled. Required for online reboot (-R) to work. Note: Not
supported on Windows machines.
Default: /tmp
unix_socket_mode
Filesystem mode for unix socket.
Default: 0777
unix_socket_group
Group name to use for unix socket.
Default: not set
user
If set, specifies the Unix user to change to after startup. Works only
if PgBouncer is started as root or if it's already running as given
user.
Note: Not supported on Windows machines.
Default: not set
auth_file
The name of the file to load user names and passwords from. The file
format is the same as the PostgreSQL 8.x pg_auth/pg_pwd file, so this
setting can be pointed directly to one of those backend files. Since
version 9.0, PostgreSQL does not use such text file, so it must be
generated manually. See section Authentication file format below about
details.
Default: not set.
auth_hba_file
HBA configuration file to use when auth_type is hba. Supported from
version 1.7 onwards.
Default: not set
auth_type
How to authenticate users.
hba Actual auth type is loaded from auth_hba_file. This allows
different authentication methods different access paths.
Example: connection over unix socket use peer auth method,
connection over TCP must use TLS. Supported from version 1.7
onwards.
cert Client must connect over TLS connection with valid client cert.
Username is then taken from CommonName field from certificate.
md5 Use MD5-based password check. auth_file may contain both
MD5-encrypted or plain-text passwords. This is the default
authentication method.
plain Clear-text password is sent over wire. Deprecated.
trust No authentication is done. Username must still exist in
auth_file.
any Like the trust method, but the username given is ignored.
Requires that all databases are configured to log in as specific
user. Additionally, the console database allows any user to log
in as admin.
auth_query
Query to load user's password from db.
Default: SELECT usename, passwd FROM pg_shadow WHERE usename=$1
pool_mode
Specifies when a server connection can be reused by other clients.
session
Server is released back to pool after client disconnects.
Default.
transaction
Server is released back to pool after transaction finishes.
statement
Server is released back to pool after query finishes. Long
transactions spanning multiple statements are disallowed in this
mode.
max_client_conn
Maximum number of client connections allowed. When increased then the
file descriptor limits should also be increased. Note that actual
number of file descriptors used is more than max_client_conn.
Theoretical maximum used is:
max_client_conn + (max_pool_size * total_databases * total_users)
if each user connects under its own username to server. If a database
user is specified in connect string (all users connect under same
username), the theoretical maximum is:
max_client_conn + (max_pool_size * total_databases)
The theoretical maximum should be never reached, unless somebody
deliberately crafts special load for it. Still, it means you should
set the number of file descriptors to a safely high number.
Search for ulimit in your favourite shell man page. Note: ulimit does
not apply in a Windows environment.
Default: 100
default_pool_size
How many server connections to allow per user/database pair. Can be
overridden in the per-database configuration.
Default: 20
min_pool_size
Add more server connections to pool if below this number. Improves
behaviour when usual load comes suddenly back after period of total
inactivity.
Default: 0 (disabled)
reserve_pool_size
How many additional connections to allow to a pool. 0 disables.
Default: 0 (disabled)
reserve_pool_timeout
If a client has not been serviced in this many seconds, pgbouncer
enables use of additional connections from reserve pool. 0 disables.
Default: 5.0
max_db_connections
Do not allow more than this many connections per-database (regardless
of pool - i.e. user). It should be noted that when you hit the limit,
closing a client connection to one pool will not immediately allow a
server connection to be established for another pool, because the
server connection for the first pool is still open. Once the server
connection closes (due to idle timeout), a new server connection will
immediately be opened for the waiting pool.
Default: unlimited
max_user_connections
Do not allow more than this many connections per-user (regardless of
pool - i.e. user). It should be noted that when you hit the limit,
closing a client connection to one pool will not immediately allow a
server connection to be established for another pool, because the
server connection for the first pool is still open. Once the server
connection closes (due to idle timeout), a new server connection will
immediately be opened for the waiting pool.
server_round_robin
By default, pgbouncer reuses server connections in LIFO (last-in,
first-out) manner, so that few connections get the most load. This
gives best performance if you have a single server serving a database.
But if there is TCP round-robin behind a database IP, then it is better
if pgbouncer also uses connections in that manner, thus achieving
uniform load.
Default: 0
ignore_startup_parameters
By default, PgBouncer allows only parameters it can keep track of in
startup packets - client_encoding, datestyle, timezone and
standard_conforming_strings.
All others parameters will raise an error. To allow others parameters,
they can be specified here, so that pgbouncer knows that they are
handled by admin and it can ignore them.
Default: empty
disable_pqexec
Disable Simple Query protocol (PQexec). Unlike Extended Query
protocol, Simple Query allows multiple queries in one packet, which
allows some classes of SQL-injection attacks. Disabling it can improve
security. Obviously this means only clients that exclusively use
Extended Query protocol will stay working.
Default: 0
application_name_add_host
Add the client host address and port to the application name setting
set on connection start. This helps in identifying the source of bad
queries etc. This logic applies only on start of connection, if
application_name is later changed with SET, pgbouncer does not change
it again.
Default: 0
conffile
Show location of current config file. Changing it will make PgBouncer
use another config file for next RELOAD / SIGHUP.
Default: file from command line.
service_name
Used on win32 service registration.
Default: pgbouncer
job_name
Alias for service_name.
LOG SETTINGS
syslog
Toggles syslog on/off As for windows environment, eventlog is used
instead.
Default: 0
syslog_ident
Under what name to send logs to syslog.
Default: pgbouncer (program name)
syslog_facility
Under what facility to send logs to syslog. Possibilities: auth,
authpriv, daemon, user, local0-7.
Default: daemon
log_connections
Log successful logins.
Default: 1
log_disconnections
Log disconnections with reasons.
Default: 1
log_pooler_errors
Log error messages pooler sends to clients.
Default: 1
stats_period
Period for writing aggregated stats into log.
Default: 60
verbose
Increase verbosity. Mirrors "-v" switch on command line. Using "-v
-v" on command line is same as verbose=2 in config.
Default: 0
CONSOLE ACCESS CONTROL
admin_users
Comma-separated list of database users that are allowed to connect and
run all commands on console. Ignored when auth_type is any, in which
case any username is allowed in as admin.
Default: empty
stats_users
Comma-separated list of database users that are allowed to connect and
run read-only queries on console. Thats means all SHOW commands except
SHOW FDS.
Default: empty.
CONNECTION SANITY CHECKS, TIMEOUTS
server_reset_query
Query sent to server on connection release, before making it available
to other clients. At that moment no transaction is in progress so it
should not include ABORT or ROLLBACK.
A good choice for Postgres 8.2 and below is:
server_reset_query = RESET ALL; SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION DEFAULT;
for 8.3 and above its enough to do:
server_reset_query = DISCARD ALL;
When transaction pooling is used, the server_reset_query should be
empty, as clients should not use any session features. If client does
use session features, then they will be broken as transaction pooling
will not guarantee that next query will be run on same connection.
Default: DISCARD ALL
server_reset_query_always
Whether server_reset_query should be run in all pooling modes. When
this setting is off (default), the server_reset_query will be run only
in pools that are in sessions-pooling mode. Connections in
transaction-pooling mode should not have any need for reset query.
Default: 0
server_check_delay
How long to keep released connections available for immediate re-use,
without running sanity-check queries on it. If 0 then the query is ran
always.
Default: 30.0
server_check_query
Simple do-nothing query to check if the server connection is alive.
If an empty string, then sanity checking is disabled.
Default: SELECT 1;
server_lifetime
The pooler will try to close server connections that have been
connected longer than this. Setting it to 0 means the connection is to
be used only once, then closed. [seconds]
Default: 3600.0
server_idle_timeout
If a server connection has been idle more than this many seconds it
will be dropped. If 0 then timeout is disabled. [seconds]
Default: 600.0
server_connect_timeout
If connection and login won't finish in this amount of time, the
connection will be closed. [seconds]
Default: 15.0
server_login_retry
If login failed, because of failure from connect() or authentication
that pooler waits this much before retrying to connect. [seconds]
Default: 15.0
client_login_timeout
If a client connects but does not manage to login in this amount of
time, it will be disconnected. Mainly needed to avoid dead connections
stalling SUSPEND and thus online restart. [seconds]
Default: 60.0
autodb_idle_timeout
If the automatically created (via "*") database pools have been unused
this many seconds, they are freed. The negative aspect of that is that
their statistics are also forgotten. [seconds]
Default: 3600.0
dns_max_ttl
How long the DNS lookups can be cached. If a DNS lookup returns
several answers, pgbouncer will robin-between them in the meantime.
Actual DNS TTL is ignored. [seconds]
Default: 15.0
dns_nxdomain_ttl
How long error and NXDOMAIN DNS lookups can be cached. [seconds]
Default: 15.0
dns_zone_check_period
Period to check if zone serial has changed.
PgBouncer can collect dns zones from hostnames (everything after first
dot) and then periodically check if zone serial changes. If it notices
changes, all hostnames under that zone are looked up again. If any
host ip changes, it's connections are invalidated.
Works only with UDNS backend (--with-udns to configure).
Default: 0.0 (disabled)
TLS SETTINGS
client_tls_sslmode
TLS mode to use for connections from clients. TLS connections are
disabled by default. When enabled, client_tls_key_file and
client_tls_cert_file must be also configured to set up key and cert
PgBouncer uses to accept client connections.
disabled
Plain TCP. If client requests TLS, it's ignored. Default.
allow If client requests TLS, it is used. If not, plain TCP is used.
If client uses client-certificate, it is not validated.
prefer Same as allow.
require
Client must use TLS. If not, client connection is rejected. If
client uses client-certificate, it is not validated.
verify-ca
Client must use TLS with valid client certificate.
verify-full
Same as verify-ca.
client_tls_key_file
Private key for PgBouncer to accept client connections.
Default: not set.
client_tls_cert_file
Certificate for private key. Clients can validate it.
Default: not set.
client_tls_ca_file
Root certificate file to validate client certificates.
Default: unset.
client_tls_protocols
Which TLS protocol versions are allowed. Allowed values: tlsv1.0,
tlsv1.1, tlsv1.2. Shortcuts: all (tlsv1.0,tlsv1.1,tlsv1.2), secure
(tlsv1.2), legacy (all).
Default: all
client_tls_ciphers
Default: fast
client_tls_ecdhcurve
Elliptic Curve name to use for ECDH key exchanges.
Allowed values: none (DH is disabled), auto (256-bit ECDH), curve name.
Default: auto
client_tls_dheparams
DHE key exchange type.
Allowed values: none (DH is disabled), auto (2048-bit DH), legacy
(1024-bit DH).
Default: auto
server_tls_sslmode
TLS mode to use for connections to PostgreSQL servers. TLS connections
are disabled by default.
disabled
Plain TCP. TCP is not event requested from server. Default.
allow FIXME: if server rejects plain, try TLS?
prefer TLS connection is always requested first from PostgreSQL, when
refused connection will be establised over plain TCP. Server
certificate is not validated.
require
Connection must go over TLS. If server rejects it, plain TCP is
not attempted. Server certificate is not validated.
verify-ca
Connection must go over TLS and server certificate must be valid
according to server_tls_ca_file. Server hostname is not checked
against certificate.
verify-full
Connection must go over TLS and server certificate must be valid
according to server_tls_ca_file. Server hostname must match
certificate info.
server_tls_ca_file
Root certificate file to validate PostgreSQL server certificates.
Default: unset.
server_tls_key_file
Private key for PgBouncer to authenticate against PostgreSQL server.
Default: not set.
server_tls_cert_file
Certificate for private key. PostgreSQL server can validate it.
Default: not set.
server_tls_protocols
Which TLS protocol versions are allowed. Allowed values: tlsv1.0,
tlsv1.1, tlsv1.2. Shortcuts: all (tlsv1.0,tlsv1.1,tlsv1.2), secure
(tlsv1.2), legacy (all).
Default: all
server_tls_ciphers
Default: fast
DANGEROUS TIMEOUTS
Setting following timeouts cause unexpected errors.
query_timeout
Queries running longer than that are canceled. This should be used only
with slightly smaller server-side statement_timeout, to apply only for
network problems. [seconds]
Default: 0.0 (disabled)
query_wait_timeout
Maximum time queries are allowed to spend waiting for execution. If the
query is not assigned to a server during that time, the client is
disconnected. This is used to prevent unresponsive servers from
grabbing up connections. [seconds]
It also helps when server is down or database rejects connections for
any reason. If this is disabled, clients will be queued infinitely.
Default: 120
client_idle_timeout
Client connections idling longer than this many seconds are closed.
This should be larger than the client-side connection lifetime
settings, and only used for network problems. [seconds]
Default: 0.0 (disabled)
idle_transaction_timeout
If client has been in "idle in transaction" state longer, it will be
disconnected. [seconds]
Default: 0.0 (disabled)
LOW-LEVEL NETWORK SETTINGS
pkt_buf
Internal buffer size for packets. Affects size of TCP packets sent and
general memory usage. Actual libpq packets can be larger than this so,
no need to set it large.
Default: 4096
max_packet_size
Maximum size for Postgres packets that PgBouncer allows through. One
packet is either one query or one resultset row. Full resultset can be
larger.
Default: 2147483647
listen_backlog
Backlog argument for listen(2). Determines how many new unanswered
connection attempts are kept in queue. When queue is full, further new
connections are dropped.
Default: 128
sbuf_loopcnt
How many times to process data on one connection, before proceeding.
Without this limit, one connection with a big resultset can stall
PgBouncer for a long time. One loop processes one pkt_buf amount of
data. 0 means no limit.
Default: 5
suspend_timeout
How many seconds to wait for buffer flush during SUSPEND or reboot
(-R). Connection is dropped if flush does not succeed.
Default: 10
tcp_defer_accept
For details on this and other tcp options, please see man 7 tcp.
Default: 45 on Linux, otherwise 0
tcp_socket_buffer
Default: not set
tcp_keepalive
Turns on basic keepalive with OS defaults.
On Linux, the system defaults are tcp_keepidle=7200, tcp_keepintvl=75,
tcp_keepcnt=9. They are probably similar on other OS-es.
Default: 1
tcp_keepcnt
Default: not set
tcp_keepidle
Default: not set
tcp_keepintvl
Default: not set
SECTION [DATABASES]
This contains key=value pairs where key will be taken as a database
name and value as a libpq connect-string style list of key=value pairs.
As actual libpq is not used, so not all features from libpq can be used
(service=, .pgpass).
Database name can contain characters _0-9A-Za-z without quoting. Names
that contain other chars need to be quoted with standard SQL ident
quoting: double quotes where "" is taken as single quote.
"*" acts as fallback database: if the exact name does not exist, its
value is taken as connect string for requested database. Such
automatically created database entries are cleaned up if they stay idle
longer then the time specified in autodb_idle_timeout parameter.
dbname
Destination database name.
Default: same as client-side database name.
host
Hostname or IP address to connect to. Hostnames are resolved on
connect time, the result is cached per dns_max_ttl parameter. If DNS
returns several results, they are used in round-robin manner.
Default: not set, meaning to use a Unix socket.
port
Default: 5432
user, password
If user= is set, all connections to the destination database will be
done with the specified user, meaning that there will be only one pool
for this database.
Otherwise PgBouncer tries to log into the destination database with
client username, meaning that there will be one pool per user.
auth_user
If auth_user is set, any user not specified in auth_file will be
queried from pg_shadow in the database using auth_user. Auth_user's
password will be taken from auth_file.
pool_size
Set maximum size of pools for this database. If not set, the
default_pool_size is used.
connect_query
Query to be executed after a connection is established, but before
allowing the connection to be used by any clients. If the query raises
errors, they are logged but ignored otherwise.
pool_mode
Set the pool mode specific to this database. If not set, the default
pool_mode is used.
max_db_connections
Configure a database-wide maximum (i.e. all pools within the database
will not have more than this many server connections).
client_encoding
Ask specific client_encoding from server.
datestyle
Ask specific datestyle from server.
timezone
Ask specific timezone from server.
SECTION [USERS]
This contains key=value pairs where key will be taken as a user name
and value as a libpq connect-string style list of key=value pairs. As
actual libpq is not used, so not all features from libpq can be used.
pool_mode
Set the pool mode to be used for all connections from this user. If not
set, the database or default pool_mode is used.
INCLUDE DIRECTIVE
The PgBouncer config file can contain include directives, which specify
another config file to read and process. This allows for splitting the
configuration file into physically separate parts. The include
directives look like this:
%include filename
If the file name is not absolute path it is taken as relative to
current working directory.
AUTHENTICATION FILE FORMAT
PgBouncer needs its own user database. The users are loaded from a text
file in following format:
"username1" "password" ...
"username2" "md5abcdef012342345" ...
There should be at least 2 fields, surrounded by double quotes. The
first field is the username and the second is either a plain-text or a
MD5-hidden password. PgBouncer ignores the rest of the line.
This file format is equivalent to text files used by PostgreSQL 8.x for
authentication info, thus allowing PgBouncer to work directly on
PostgreSQL authentication files in data directory.
Since PostgreSQL 9.0, the text files are not used anymore. Thus the
auth file needs to be generated. See ./etc/mkauth.py for sample
script to generate auth file from pg_shadow table.
PostgreSQL MD5-hidden password format:
"md5" + md5(password + username)
So user admin with password 1234 will have MD5-hidden password
md545f2603610af569b6155c45067268c6b.
HBA FILE FORMAT
It follows the format of PostgreSQL pg_hba.conf file -
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/auth-pg-hba-conf.html
There are following differences:
o Supported record types: local, host, hostssl, hostnossl.
o Database field: Supports all, sameuser, @file, multiple names. Not
supported: replication, samerole, samegroup.
o Username field: Supports all, @file, multiple names. Not supported:
+groupname.
o Address field: Supported IPv4, IPv6. Not supported: DNS names,
domain prefixes.
o Auth-method field: Supported methods: trust, reject, md5, password,
peer, cert. Not supported: gss, sspi, ident, ldap, radius, pam.
Also username map (map=) parameter is not supported.
EXAMPLE
Minimal config:
[databases]
template1 = host=127.0.0.1 dbname=template1 auth_user=someuser
[pgbouncer]
pool_mode = session
listen_port = 6543
listen_addr = 127.0.0.1
auth_type = md5
auth_file = users.txt
logfile = pgbouncer.log
pidfile = pgbouncer.pid
admin_users = someuser
stats_users = stat_collector
Database defaults:
[databases]
; foodb over unix socket
foodb =
; redirect bardb to bazdb on localhost
bardb = host=127.0.0.1 dbname=bazdb
; access to destination database will go with single user
forcedb = host=127.0.0.1 port=300 user=baz password=foo client_encoding=UNICODE datestyle=ISO
SEE ALSO
https://pgbouncer.github.io/
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PgBouncer
pgbouncer(1) - manpage for general usage, console commands.
1.7 2006-10-23 PGBOUNCER.INI(5)