PGXN Extension Build and Test Tools Docker Image

This project provides a simple Docker image to enable the automated testing of PGXN extensions against multiple versions of PostgreSQL, as well as publishing releases to PGXN. The image contains these utilities:

pgxn: The PGXN command-line client
pg_prove: Runs and harnessing pgTAP tests
pg-start Installs a major version of PostgreSQL and starts a cluster
pg-build-test: Builds and tests a PGXS extension in the current directory
pgrx-build-test: Builds and tests a pgrx extension in the current directory
pgxn-bundle: Validates the PGXN META.json file and bundles up a release
pgxn-release: Release to PGXN

The image is based on the Debian Bookworm Slim image, and uses the PostgreSQL Apt repository to install PostgreSQL, supporting versions back to 8.2, as well as the latest prerelease version.

Running a Container

To run pgxn-tools in Docker, use the standard Docker CLI, like so:

docker run -it --rm -w /repo --volume "$PWD:/repo" pgxn/pgxn-tools \
    sh -c 'pg-start 16 && pg-build-test'

This example mounts the current directory inside the container. Once inside, it starts Postgres 16 then builds and runs the tests for the extension in that directory.

Unprivileged User

NOTE: GitHub workflow container jobs must be run as root. The options for unprivileged users in this section will not work in that context. See Unprivileged User Workflow for details.

By default the container runs as root. To run as an unprivileged user, pass the AS_USER environment variable and a user with that name will be created with sudo privileges (already used by pg-start and pg-build-test):

docker run -it --rm -w /repo -e AS_USER=worker \
    --volume "$PWD:/repo" pgxn/pgxn-tools \
    sh -c 'sudo pg-start 14 && pg-build-test'

The created user will have the UID 1001 unless LOCAL_UID is passed, which can usefully be set to the local UID so that the user has permission to access files in a volume:

docker run -it --rm -w /repo -e AS_USER=worker -e LOCAL_UID=$(id -u) \
    --volume "$PWD:/repo" pgxn/pgxn-tools \
    sh -c 'sudo pg-start 14 && pg-build-test'

Included Users

The nobody user, included in the image, and the postgres user, created by pg-start, also have full permission to use sudo without a password prompt.

GitHub Workflows

Test PGXS Extensions

Here's a sample [GitHub Workflow] to run PGXS tests on multiple versions of PostgreSQL for every push and pull request:

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        pg: [17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9.6, 9.5, 9.4, 9.3, 9.2, 9.1, 9.0, 8.4, 8.3, 8.2]
    name: 🐘 PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: pgxn/pgxn-tools
    steps:
      - name: Start PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
        run: pg-start ${{ matrix.pg }}
      - name: Check out the repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Test on PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
        run: pg-build-test

Test pgrx Extensions

To run pgrx tests, instead, add Swatinem/rust-cache@v2 (to cache dependencies for shorter run times) and use pgrx-build-test instead:

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        pg: [16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11]
    name: 🐘 PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: pgxn/pgxn-tools
    steps:
      - name: Start PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
        run: pg-start ${{ matrix.pg }}
      - name: Check out the repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Setup Rust Cache
        uses: Swatinem/rust-cache@v2
      - name: Test on PostgreSQL ${{ matrix.pg }}
        run: pgrx-build-test

Release on PGXN and GitHub

This example demonstrates automatic publishing of a release whenever a tag is pushed matching v*. It publishes both to GitHub (using the create-release and upload-release-asset actions) and to PGXN:

name: Release
on:
  push:
    # Push events matching v1.0, v20.15.10, etc.
    tags: ['v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+']
jobs:
  release:
    name: Release on GitHub and PGXN
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: pgxn/pgxn-tools
    env:
      # Required to create GitHub release and upload the bundle.
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    steps:
    - name: Check out the repo
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Bundle the Release
      id: bundle
      run: pgxn-bundle
    - name: Release on PGXN
      env:
        # Required to release on PGXN.
        PGXN_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.PGXN_USERNAME }}
        PGXN_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.PGXN_PASSWORD }}
      run: pgxn-release
    - name: Create GitHub Release
      id: release
      uses: actions/create-release@v1
      with:
        tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
        release_name: Release ${{ github.ref }}
        body: |
          Changes in this Release
          - First Change
          - Second Change
    - name: Upload Release Asset
      uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
      with:
        # Reference the upload URL and bundle name from previous steps.
        upload_url: ${{ steps.release.outputs.upload_url }}
        asset_path: ./${{ steps.bundle.outputs.bundle }}
        asset_name: ${{ steps.bundle.outputs.bundle }}
        asset_content_type: application/zip

Unprivileged User Workflow

GitHub workflows require the root user to work with the workspace. To perform tasks as an unprivileged user, first set things up as the root user, then use gosu to execute a command as the postgres (can run sudo) or nobody (no privileges at all) user. For example:

    container: pgxn/pgxn-tools
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: pg-start 16
      - run: chown -R postgres:postgres .
      - run: gosu postgres pg-build-test

The checkout action, pg-start, and chown commands must run as root. Then, with the current directory's files all owned the newly-created postgres user, the last run commands executes pg-build-test as postgres, with the necessary permissions to write files to the workspace directory.

Alternatively, run the Docker image directly and set AS_USER to the desired username and pass the GitHub worker UID via the LOCAL_UID variable:

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: >-
        docker run -w /repo --rm --volume "$(pwd):/repo"
               -e AS_USER=pgxn_worker -e LOCAL_UID=$(id -u)
               pgxn/pgxn-tools pg-start && pg-build-test

This allows the user in the container to run a as the same UID as the host user and therefore have access to all the mounted files owned by that user.

Tools

Some details on the tools:

`pg-start`

pg-start 12
pg-start 11 libsodium-dev

Installs the specified version of PostgreSQL from the PostgreSQL Apt community repository, as well as any additional Debian core or PostgreSQL packages passed as subsequent arguments. It then starts the cluster on 5432 (or $PGPORT if it's set) with the system locale and encoding (C.UTF-8 by default) and trust authentication enabled. If you need the cluster configured with a specific locale (for collation predictability, for example), set the $LANG environment variable before calling pg-start.

The pg-start tool uses pg_createcluster to create and start the cluster. To pass options, use the $OPTIONS environment variable. For example, to add a GUC to the postgresql.conf file, use the --pgoption option:

CREATE_OPTIONS="--pgoption max_locks_per_transaction=128" pg-start

If you need to access the postgresql.conf after startup, say to add additional configuration, you can use the SHOW config_file SQL command like so:

psql --no-psqlrc -U postgres -Atqc 'SHOW config_file'

For example, to load PL/Perl:

echo "shared_preload_libraries = '$libdir/plperl'" >> $(psql --no-psqlrc -U postgres -Atqc 'SHOW config_file')

The cluster is named "test", and if you need to restart it (e.g. because you modified the postgresql.conf file), use pg_ctlcluster like so:

pg_ctlcluster 12 test restart

For finer control over running the PostgreSQL cluster, set the NO_CLUSTER environment variable to prevent pg-start from creating and starting a cluster:

env NO_CLUSTER=1 pg-start 14

This will simply install Postgres 14; to start it, use the pg_createcluster command, like so:

pg_createcluster --start 14 my14 -p 5414 -- -A trust

This starts a cluster named "my14" on port 5414. This technique is useful to run multiple clusters, even different versions at once; just given them unique names and ports to run on:

env NO_CLUSTER=1 pg-start 15
pg_createcluster --start 15 my15 -p 5415 -- -A trust
env NO_CLUSTER=1 pg-start 16
pg_createcluster --start 16 my16 -p 5416 -- -A trust

`pg-build-test`

pg-build-test

Simply builds, installs, and tests a PGXS PostgreSQL extension or other code in the current directory. Effectively the equivalent of:

make
make install
make installcheck

But a bit more, to ensure that the tests run as the postgres user, and if tests fail to emit the contents of the regression.diffs file. Designed to cover the most common PostgreSQL extension build-and-test patterns.

By default, pg-build-test uses builds with PROFILE=--Werror; Specify an alternate $PROFILE environment variable to override it:

export PROFILE=--Wall
pg-build-test

`pgrx-build-test`

pgrx-build-test

Builds, installs, and tests a PostgreSQL pgrx extension. It reads the required version of pgrx from the Cargo.toml file, which must be v0.11.4 or higher. Effectively the equivalent of:

cargo install --locked cargo-pgrx --version ${PGRX_VERSION}
cargo pgrx init --pg${PG_VERSION}=$(which pg_config)
cargo pgrx package --test --pg-config $(which pg_config)
cargo pgrx test --runas postgres pg${PG_VERSION}
cargo pgrx install --test --pg-config $(which pg_config)

But a bit more, to ensure that the tests run as the postgres user and emits all output. It will also run make installcheck if it finds a Makefile that appears to define the installcheck target, and emit the contents of the regression.diffs file if it fails.

`pgxn-bundle`

pgxn-bundle
PGXN_DIST_NAME=widget PGXN_DIST_VERSION=1.0.0 pgxn-bundle

Validates the PGXN META.json file and bundles up the repository for release to PGXN. It does so by archiving the Git repository like so:

git archive --format zip --prefix="${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}/" \
            --output "${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}" HEAD

If pgxn-bundle detects no Git repository, it uses zip to zip up entire contents of the current directory with a command like this:

zip -r "${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}.zip" "${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}/"

If the $PGXN_DIST_NAME or $PGXN_DIST_VERSION variable is not set, the extension name and version are read from the META.json file (indeed, this is preferred). The zip file will be at the root of the repository, ready for release, and the name of the bundle will be appended to the $GITHUB_OUTPUT file in this format, for use in GitHub Actions such as upload-release-asset:

echo bundle=${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}.zip >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

To exclude Git repository files from the bundle, add a .gitattributes file to the repository and use the export-ignore attribute to identify files and directories to exclude. This example excludes some typical Git and GitHub files and directories, as well as a test script:

.gitignore export-ignore
.gitattributes export-ignore
test.sh export-ignore
.github export-ignore

To include Git submodules in the bundle, set [GIT_ARCHIVE_CMD=archive-all] and pgxn-bundle will use git-archive-all instead of git archive to create the bundle.

Use the $GIT_BUNDLE_OPTS variable to pass options to the git archive (or git archive-all) command or $ZIP_BUNDLE_OPTS to pass options to the zip command.

For example, if a Git repo contains no META.json, but generates it via a make command, it will not be included in the zip archive, because git archive includes only committed files. Use the --add-file option to tell git archive to add it, like so:

make META.json
export GIT_BUNDLE_OPTS="--add-file META.json"
pgxn-bundle

If, on the other hand, you're not using a Git repository, pgxn-bundle will use the zip utility, instead. To exclude a file from the zip file, use the $ZIP_BUNDLE_OPTS variable to pass the --exclude option to zip, something like:

export ZIP_BUNDLE_OPTS="--exclude */.dev-only.txt"
pgxn-bundle

Note the */ prefix, required to match a file name under the ${PGXN_DIST_NAME}-${PGXN_DIST_VERSION}/ directory prefix.

`pgxn-release`

export PGXN_USERNAME=susan
export PGXN_PASSWORD='s00per&ecret'
pgxn-release
pgxn-release widget-1.0.0.zip

Uploads a release zip file to PGXN. The $PGXN_USERNAME and $PGXN_PASSWORD variables must be set. If no release file is passed, it will use the $PGXN_DIST_NAME or $PGXN_DIST_VERSION variables or read the META.json file, just like pgxn-bundle does. This assumes that you've properly updated your META.json file and any other files that need a version increment or timestamp to mark release. This might be most useful in a "release" CI/CD event, or for a main branch reserved for released code.

`pgxn`

pgxn install hostname

The PGXN client provides an interface to extensions distributed on PGXN. Use it to install of additional dependencies, should you need them, from PGXN. You'd generally want to use it to install dependencies before building and running tests, for example:

pg-start 12
pgxn install semver
pg-build-test

Please refer to the docs for all the details.

`pg_prove`

pg-start 12
pg_prove -r --ext .sql test/

pg_prove is a command-line application to run one or more pgTAP tests in a PostgreSQL database.

pgTAP is a suite of database functions that make it easy to write TAP-emitting unit tests in psql scripts or xUnit-style test functions. The TAP output is suitable for harvesting, analysis, and reporting by pg_prove or other TAP tools.

Note that these are not the same as PostgreSQL TAP tests, though they are also supported by the inclusion of IPC::Run in this image.

Installed Packages

The image includes these packages; pass additional packages to pg-start to install them while setting up PostgreSQL.

build-essential
clang
llvm
llvm-dev
llvm-runtime
cmake
pkgconf
pgxnclient
libtap-parser-sourcehandler-pgtap-perl
sudo
gosu
ca-certificates
gnupg2
zip
unzip
libarchive-tools
curl
git
libicu-dev
libipc-run-perl (IPC::Run for PostgreSQL TAP tests)
libtest-simple-perl
libtoml-parser-perl
libxml2
locales
ssl-cert
git-archive-all (run git archive-all)
Rust Toolchain

Rust Components

The image includes the following Rust components; use rustup component add to add additional components at runtime.

rust minimal
rustfmt
clippy

Author

David E. Wheeler

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README.md

README.md

PGXN Extension Build and Test Tools Docker Image

Running a Container

Unprivileged User

Included Users

GitHub Workflows

Test PGXS Extensions

Test pgrx Extensions

Release on PGXN and GitHub

Unprivileged User Workflow

Tools

`pg-start`

`pg-build-test`

`pgrx-build-test`

`pgxn-bundle`

`pgxn-release`

`pgxn`

`pg_prove`

Installed Packages

Rust Components

Author

Copyright and License

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

PGXN Extension Build and Test Tools Docker Image

Running a Container

Unprivileged User

Included Users

GitHub Workflows

Test PGXS Extensions

Test pgrx Extensions

Release on PGXN and GitHub

Unprivileged User Workflow

Tools

pg-start

pg-build-test

pgrx-build-test

pgxn-bundle

pgxn-release

pgxn

pg_prove

Installed Packages

Rust Components

Author

Copyright and License

`pg-start`

`pg-build-test`

`pgrx-build-test`

`pgxn-bundle`

`pgxn-release`

`pgxn`

`pg_prove`