VMware

vFabric Postgres 9.2 Release Notes

vFabric Postgres 9.2.4 | 4 Apr 2013

Last Document Update: 4 Apr 2013

What's in the Release Notes

These release notes cover the following topics:

About VMware vFabric Postgres

VMware® vFabric™ Postgres is based on the open source PostgreSQL database system and is optimized for virtual environments. In addition to all standard PostgreSQL features, vFabric Postgres provides elastic database memory, checkpoint self-tuning, and a GUI administration tool.

VMware® vFabric™ Postgres is available as an RPM installation or as an OVA (virtual appliance). The virtual appliance provides the functionality available in the vFabric Postgres RPM installation, plus the following features:

  • 64 bit SLES 11 SP2 operating system

  • Watchdog process to enable vSphere HA. On ESXi, the watchdog reboots on the same physical host. The watchdog must be enabled from ESXi.

  • Automated RAM, CPU, and disk size configuration based on virtual machine configuration and automated postgresql.conf tuning.

  • Quick start configuration wizard suitable for most environments.

What’s New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.4

vFabric Postgres 9.2.4 is a security update of vFabric Postgres and addresses the following Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) items:

  • CVE-2013-1899
  • CVE-2013-1900
  • CVE-2013-1901

Note: If you currently use vFabric Postgres 9.2.2, update your environment to use vFabric Postgres 9.2.4 instead. The database formats for the two releases are compatible. vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is no longer available as a separate download.

All updates to the PostgreSQL 9.2.2 release are included in vFabric Postgres 9.2.4.

To perform the update, follow the instructions on the vFabric blog at http://blogs.vmware.com/vfabric/2013/04/how-to-perform-security-updates-on-vfabric-postgres.html.If you use the Virtual Appliance update mechanism, restart the database server by rebooting the appliance or by stopping and starting the aurora_mon service.

What’s New in vFabric Postgres 9.2.2

vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is a major release that incorporates PostgreSQL 9.2.2 bug fixes, and new features.

All updates to PostgreSQL 9.2.2 release are included in vFabric Postgres 9.2. See http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.2 for a complete list.

In addition to the new PostgreSQL 9.2.2 features, vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 provides these enhancements.

  • Users can replace PostgreSQL 9.2 executable files with vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 executable files. This means that vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 can use database files that are created with PostgreSQL 9.2 release.

  • A GUI administration tool for vFabric Postgres 9.2.2 is included with the virtual appliance. If you are using the RPM installation, you can install the GUI explicitly.

The vFabric Postgres 9.2. database format is not compatible with vFabric Postgres 9.1. You can dump a vFabric Postgres 9.1 database and restore it from vFabric Postgres 9.2. See the Using VMware vFabric Postgres manual.

vFabric Postgres and PostgreSQL Documentation Resources

Known Issues and Workarounds

The following issues were found during the testing of this release:

  • psql commands with UTF8 fail in Windows client
    Entering psql commands that contain UTF8 characters at the Windows command prompt result in error messages to the shell.
    Workaround: None.

  • Need additional files when installing 32-bit client with 64-bit RHEL server
    If you are installing the VMware-vPostgres-32bit-client-version.rpm, you might get an error message.
    Workaround: You may need to install the following Red Hat packages.

    • glibc-*.i686.rpm
    • glibc-common-*.x86_64.rpm
    • nss-softokn-freebl-*.i686.rpm

    To install the packages, run this command from a RHEL prompt:

    rpm -Uvh glibc-*.i686.rpm glibc-common-*.x86_64.rpm nss-softokn-freebl-*.i686.rpm

    Adding these packages installs two new files in your glibc directory and two new files in your nss-softokn-freebl directory.

  • ODBC file DSN information not saved
    If you are creating a vFabric Postgres database using the vFabric Data Director interface, you might get an error when trying to save the ODBC connection information. This is because the 'File DSN' window cannot read braces in the server name.
    Workaround: Escape the braces with backslashes or put the server name in single quotes, as follows:

    Correct: \{eb8d27f3-23db-4a42-bbe3-853e2b13a95b\}.ldap-db-beta-0330.fvtaurora.com
    Correct: '{eb8d27f3-23db-4a42-bbe3-853e2b13a95b}.ldap-db-beta-0330.fvtaurora.com '
    Incorrect: {eb8d27f3-23db-4a42-bbe3-853e2b13a95b}.ldap-db-beta-0330.fvtaurora.com

  • Must use OVF tool if window resolution is less than 1280 x 1024
    If you are installing the vFabric Postgres appliance on different platform than vSphere, and your monitor resolution is 1280 by 1024 or lower (for example 1440 x 900 or 800 x 480) your screen may become full-sized during the EULA deployment, and you may not be able to re-size it.
    Workaround: Use VMware OVF Tool to convert the OVA package to a VMX package, as follows.

    1. Download the OVF tool from http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/automationtools/ovf and install it on your computer or virtual machine.

    2. Use the OVF Tool to convert the aurora_dbvm-version.ovf package to aurora.vmx, as in the following example:

      ovftool "C:\Users\your_username\Downloads\aurora_dbvm-version.ova" "C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\vmx\aurora.vmx"

    3. Use VMware Workstation or another VMware product to deploy the aurora.vmx file. Accept the EULA as part of the deployment process.

  • vFabric Postgres virtual appliance resets host name upon reboot
    If you change the host name in the virtual appliance a reboot resets the name. Even if you use a static IP address, the host name is pulled from DNS upon reboot. If you use an IP address that does not have associated host name in DNS, the appliance picks up the name of the local host upon reboot.
    Workaround: None.