PgHaMigrations

We've documented our learned best practices for applying schema changes without downtime in the post PostgreSQL at Scale: Database Schema Changes Without Downtime on the PayPal Technology Blog. Many of the approaches we take and choices we've made are explained in much greater depth there than in this README.

Internally we apply those best practices to our Rails applications through this gem which updates ActiveRecord migrations to clearly delineate safe and unsafe DDL as well as provide safe alternatives where possible.

Some projects attempt to hide complexity by having code determine the intent and magically do the right series of operations. But we (and by extension this gem) take the approach that it's better to understand exactly what the database is doing so that (particularly long running) operations are not a surprise during your deploy cycle.

Provided functionality:

Migrations
Utilities
Rake Tasks

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'pg_ha_migrations'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install pg_ha_migrations

Usage

Rollback

Because we require that "Rollback strategies do not involve reverting the database schema to its previous version", PgHaMigrations does not support ActiveRecord's automatic migration rollback capability.

Instead we write all of our migrations with only an def up method like:

def up
  safe_add_column :table, :column
end

and never use def change. We believe that this is the only safe approach in production environments. For development environments we iterate by recreating the database from scratch every time we make a change.

Migrations

There are two major classes of concerns we try to handle in the API:

Database safety (e.g., long-held locks)
Application safety (e.g., dropping columns the app uses)

We rename migration methods with prefixes denoting their safety level:

safe_*: These methods check for both application and database safety concerns, prefer concurrent operations where available, set low lock timeouts where appropriate, and decompose operations into multiple safe steps.
unsafe_*: These methods are generally a direct dispatch to the native ActiveRecord migration method.

Calling the original migration methods without a prefix will raise an error.

The API is designed to be explicit yet remain flexible. There may be situations where invoking the unsafe_* method is preferred (or the only option available for definitionally unsafe operations).

While unsafe_* methods were historically (through 1.0) pure wrappers for invoking the native ActiveRecord migration method, there is a class of problems that we can't handle easily without breaking that design rule a bit. For example, dropping a column is unsafe from an application perspective, so we make the application safety concerns explicit by using an unsafe_ prefix. Using unsafe_remove_column calls out the need to audit the application to confirm the migration won't break the application. Because there are no safe alternatives we don't define a safe_remove_column analogue. However there are still conditions we'd like to assert before dropping a column. For example, dropping an unused column that's used in one or more indexes may be safe from an application perspective, but the cascading drop of the index won't use a CONCURRENT operation to drop the dependent indexes and is therefore unsafe from a database perspective.

When unsafe_* migration methods support checks of this type you can bypass the checks by passing an :allow_dependent_objects key in the method's options hash containing an array of dependent object types you'd like to allow. Until 2.0 none of these checks will run by default, but you can opt-in by setting config.check_for_dependent_objects = true in your configuration initializer.

Similarly we believe the force: true option to ActiveRecord's create_table method is always unsafe, and therefore we disallow it even when calling unsafe_create_table. This option won't be enabled by default until 2.0, but you can opt-in by setting config.allow_force_create_table = false in your configuration initializer.

Running multiple DDL statements inside a transaction acquires exclusive locks on all of the modified objects. For that reason, this gem disables DDL transactions by default. You can change this by resetting ActiveRecord::Migration.disable_ddl_transaction in your application.

The following functionality is currently unsupported:

Rollbacks
Generators
schema.rb

safe_create_table

Safely creates a new table.

safe_create_table :table do |t|
  t.type :column
end

safe_create_enum_type

Safely create a new enum without values.

safe_create_enum_type :enum

Or, safely create the enum with values.

safe_create_enum_type :enum, ["value1", "value2"]

safe_add_enum_value

Safely add a new enum value.

safe_add_enum_value :enum, "value"

unsafe_rename_enum_value

Unsafely change the value of an enum type entry.

unsafe_rename_enum_value(:enum, "old_value", "new_value")

Note:

Changing an enum value does not issue any long-running scans or acquire locks on usages of the enum type. Therefore multiple queries within a transaction concurrent with the change may see both the old and new values. To highlight these potential pitfalls no safe_rename_enum_value equivalent exists. Before modifying an enum type entry you should verify that no concurrently executing queries will attempt to write the old value and that read queries understand the new value.

safe_add_column

Safely add a column.

safe_add_column :table, :column, :type

unsafe_add_column

Unsafely add a column, but do so with a lock that is safely acquired.

unsafe_add_column :table, :column, :type

safe_change_column_default

Safely change the default value for a column.

# Constant value:
safe_change_column_default :table, :column, "value"
safe_change_column_default :table, :column, DateTime.new(...)
# Functional expression evaluated at row insert time:
safe_change_column_default :table, :column, -> { "NOW()" }
# Functional expression evaluated at migration time:
safe_change_column_default :table, :column, -> { "'NOW()'" }

Note: On Postgres 11+ adding a column with a constant default value does not rewrite or scan the table (under a lock or otherwise). In that case a migration adding a column with a default should do so in a single operation rather than the two-step safe_add_column followed by safe_change_column_default. We enforce this best practice with the error PgHaMigrations::BestPracticeError, but if your prefer otherwise (or are running in a mixed Postgres version environment), you may opt out by setting config.prefer_single_step_column_addition_with_default = true in your configuration initializer.

safe_make_column_nullable

Safely make the column nullable.

safe_make_column_nullable :table, :column

unsafe_make_column_not_nullable

Unsafely make a column not nullable.

unsafe_make_column_not_nullable :table, :column

safe_add_concurrent_index

Add an index concurrently.

safe_add_concurrent_index :table, :column

Add a composite btree index.

safe_add_concurrent_index :table, [:column1, :column2], name: "index_name", using: :btree

safe_remove_concurrent_index

Safely remove an index. Migrations that contain this statement must also include disable_ddl_transaction!.

safe_remove_concurrent_index :table, :name => :index_name

safe_add_unvalidated_check_constraint

Safely add a CHECK constraint. The constraint will not be immediately validated on existing rows to avoid a full table scan while holding an exclusive lock. After adding the constraint, you'll need to use safe_validate_check_constraint to validate existing rows.

safe_add_unvalidated_check_constraint :table, "column LIKE 'example%'", name: :constraint_table_on_column_like_example

safe_validate_check_constraint

Safely validate (without acquiring an exclusive lock) existing rows for a newly added but as-yet unvalidated CHECK constraint.

safe_validate_check_constraint :table, name: :constraint_table_on_column_like_example

safe_rename_constraint

Safely rename any (not just CHECK) constraint.

safe_rename_constraint :table, from: :constraint_table_on_column_like_typo, to: :constraint_table_on_column_like_example

unsafe_remove_constraint

Drop any (not just CHECK) constraint.

unsafe_remove_constraint :table, name: :constraint_table_on_column_like_example

safe_create_partitioned_table

Safely create a new partitioned table using declaritive partitioning.

# list partitioned table using single column as partition key
safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :list, partition_key: :example_column do |t|
  t.text :example_column, null: false
end

# range partitioned table using multiple columns as partition key
safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: [:example_column_a, :example_column_b] do |t|
  t.integer :example_column_a, null: false
  t.integer :example_column_b, null: false
end

# hash partitioned table using expression as partition key
safe_create_partitioned_table :table, :type: :hash, partition_key: ->{ "(example_column::date)" } do |t|
  t.datetime :example_column, null: false
end

The identifier column type is bigserial by default. This can be overridden, as you would in safe_create_table, by setting the id argument:

safe_create_partitioned_table :table, id: :serial, type: :range, partition_key: :example_column do |t|
  t.date :example_column, null: false
end

In PostgreSQL 11+, primary key constraints are supported on partitioned tables given the partition key is included. On supported versions, the primary key is inferred by default (see available options). This functionality can be overridden by setting the infer_primary_key argument.

# primary key will be (id, example_column)
safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: :example_column do |t|
  t.date :example_column, null: false
end

# primary key will not be created
safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: :example_column, infer_primary_key: false do |t|
  t.date :example_column, null: false
end

safe_partman_create_parent

Safely configure a partitioned table to be managed by pg_partman.

This method calls the create_parent partman function with some reasonable defaults and a subset of user-defined overrides.

The first (and only) positional argument maps to p_parent_table in the create_parent function.

The rest are keyword args with the following mappings:

partition_key -> p_control. Required: true
interval -> p_interval. Required: true
template_table -> p_template_table. Required: false. Partman will create a template table if not defined.
premake -> p_premake. Required: false. Partman defaults to 4.
start_partition -> p_start_partition. Required: false. Partman defaults to the current timestamp.

Note that we have chosen to require PostgreSQL 11+ and hardcode p_type to native for simplicity, as previous PostgreSQL versions are end-of-life.

Additionally, this method allows you to configure a subset of attributes on the record stored in the part_config table. These options are delegated to the unsafe_partman_update_config method to update the record:

infinite_time_partitions. Partman defaults this to false but we default to true
inherit_privileges. Partman defaults this to false but we default to true
retention. Partman defaults this to null
retention_keep_table. Partman defaults this to true

With only the required args:

safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: :created_at do |t|
  t.timestamps null: false
end

safe_partman_create_parent :table, partition_key: :created_at, interval: "weekly"

With custom overrides:

safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: :created_at do |t|
  t.timestamps null: false
  t.text :some_column
end

# Partman will reference the template table to create unique indexes on child tables
safe_create_table :table_template, id: false do |t|
  t.text :some_column, index: {unique: true}
end

safe_partman_create_parent :table,
  partition_key: :created_at,
  interval: "weekly",
  template_table: :table_template,
  premake: 10,
  start_partition: Time.current + 1.month,
  infinite_time_partitions: false,
  inherit_privileges: false

unsafe_partman_create_parent

We have chosen to flag the use of retention and retention_keep_table as an unsafe operation. While we recognize that these options are useful, we think they fit in the same category as drop_table and rename_table, and are therefore unsafe from an application perspective. If you wish to define these options, you must use this method.

safe_create_partitioned_table :table, type: :range, partition_key: :created_at do |t|
  t.timestamps null: false
end

unsafe_partman_create_parent :table,
  partition_key: :created_at,
  interval: "weekly",
  retention: "60 days",
  retention_keep_table: false

safe_partman_update_config

There are some partitioning options that cannot be set in the call to create_parent and are only available in the part_config table. As mentioned previously, you can specify these args in the call to safe_partman_create_parent or unsafe_partman_create_parent which will be delegated to this method. Calling this method directly will be useful if you need to modify your partitioned table after the fact.

Allowed keyword args:

infinite_time_partitions
inherit_privileges
premake
retention
retention_keep_table

Note that we detect if the value of inherit_privileges is changing and will automatically call safe_partman_reapply_privileges to ensure permissions are propagated to existing child partitions.

safe_partman_update_config :table,
  infinite_time_partitions: false,
  inherit_privileges: false,
  premake: 10

unsafe_partman_update_config

As with creating a partman parent table, we have chosen to flag the use of retention and retention_keep_table as an unsafe operation. If you wish to define these options, you must use this method.

unsafe_partman_update_config :table,
  retention: "60 days",
  retention_keep_table: false

safe_partman_reapply_privileges

If your partitioned table is configured with inherit_privileges set to true, use this method after granting new roles / privileges on the parent table to ensure permissions are propagated to existing child partitions.

safe_partman_reapply_privileges :table

Utilities

safely_acquire_lock_for_table

Safely acquire a lock for a table.

safely_acquire_lock_for_table(:table) do
  ...
end

adjust_lock_timeout

Adjust lock timeout.

adjust_lock_timeout(seconds) do
  ...
end

adjust_statement_timeout

Adjust statement timeout.

adjust_statement_timeout(seconds) do
  ...
end

safe_set_maintenance_work_mem_gb

Set maintenance work mem.

safe_set_maintenance_work_mem_gb 1

Configuration

The gem can be configured in an initializer.

PgHaMigrations.configure do |config|
  # ...
end

Available options

disable_default_migration_methods: If true, the default implementations of DDL changes in ActiveRecord::Migration and the PostgreSQL adapter will be overridden by implementations that raise a PgHaMigrations::UnsafeMigrationError. Default: true
check_for_dependent_objects: If true, some unsafe_* migration methods will raise a PgHaMigrations::UnsafeMigrationError if any dependent objects exist. Default: false
prefer_single_step_column_addition_with_default: If true, raise an error when adding a column and separately setting a constant default value for that column in the same migration. Default: false
allow_force_create_table: If false, the force: true option to ActiveRecord's create_table method is disallowed. Default: true
infer_primary_key_on_partitioned_tables: If true, the primary key for partitioned tables will be inferred on PostgreSQL 11+ databases (identifier column + partition key columns). Default: true

Rake Tasks

Use this to check for blocking transactions before migrating.

$ bundle exec rake pg_ha_migrations:check_blocking_database_transactions

This rake task expects that you already have a connection open to your database. We suggest that you add another rake task to open the connection and then add that as a prerequisite for pg_ha_migrations:check_blocking_database_transactions.

namespace :db do
  desc "Establish a database connection"
  task :establish_connection do
    ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection
  end
end

Rake::Task["pg_ha_migrations:check_blocking_database_transactions"].enhance ["db:establish_connection"]

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies and start a postgres docker container. Then, run bundle exec rspec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment. This project uses Appraisal to test against multiple versions of ActiveRecord; you can run the tests against all supported version with bundle exec appraisal rspec.

Running tests will automatically create a test database in the locally running Postgres server. You can find the connection parameters in spec/spec_helper.rb, but setting the environment variables PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER, and PGPASSWORD will override the defaults.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install.

To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, commit the change, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Note: if while releasing the gem you get the error Your rubygems.org credentials aren't set. Run `gem push` to set them. you can more simply run gem signin.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/braintreeps/pg_ha_migrations. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the PgHaMigrations project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.

braintree/pg_ha_migrations

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