PostgreSQL 18: Part 5 or CommitFest 2025-03
PostgreSQL 18 has been officially out for a month, but the feature autopsy is just now concluding. This is the grand finale of our review series, and it tackles the final boss: the March 2025 CommitFest. This last development sprint is traditionally the biggest, the one where all the juiciest features get crammed in right before the gates close.
This review is a big one, precisely because the patch itself was massive. This isn't just a minor update digest; it's a deep look at the richest part of the new release. Let's dig into the most powerful new toys and capabilities that made the final cut.
PostgreSQL 18 has been officially out for a month, but the feature autopsy is just now concluding. This is the grand finale of our review series, and it tackles the final boss: the March 2025 CommitFest. This last development sprint is traditionally the biggest, the one where all the juiciest features get crammed in right before the gates close.
This review is a big one, precisely because the patch itself was massive. This isn't just a minor update digest; it's a deep look at the richest part of the new release. Let's dig into the most powerful new toys and capabilities that made the final cut.
Shardman: а quick guide for the architect
The myth of the magical fast=true parameter is still alive and well. In the world of distributed databases, it has a new contender: distributed=true. Spoiler: neither will save you. This isn't a game you win by flipping a switch; it’s a game that demands you rethink your entire schema, sharding keys, sequences, and queries.
This is a clear-eyed guide to the real trade-offs. We’ll walk through every corner — from colocated tables and CDC to topologies and foreign key constraints — to find out where performance actually improves, where it gets much more expensive, and how to deal with the fallout.
The myth of the magical fast=true parameter is still alive and well. In the world of distributed databases, it has a new contender: distributed=true. Spoiler: neither will save you. This isn't a game you win by flipping a switch; it’s a game that demands you rethink your entire schema, sharding keys, sequences, and queries.
This is a clear-eyed guide to the real trade-offs. We’ll walk through every corner — from colocated tables and CDC to topologies and foreign key constraints — to find out where performance actually improves, where it gets much more expensive, and how to deal with the fallout.
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OAuth 2.0 authorization in PostgreSQL using Keycloak as an example
Support for the OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Flow has landed in Tantor Postgres 17.5.0 (and is heading for PostgreSQL 18). This means you can finally play the "log in via Keycloak" game directly with your database, offering a modern and secure access method that's perfect for cloud environments and microservice architectures.
This guide walks through the entire setup, showing how to get this new feature talking to Keycloak. We'll follow the full path — configuring the identity provider, preparing PostgreSQL, writing an OAuth token validator, and verifying the whole thing works from psql using the Device Flow.
Support for the OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Flow has landed in Tantor Postgres 17.5.0 (and is heading for PostgreSQL 18). This means you can finally play the "log in via Keycloak" game directly with your database, offering a modern and secure access method that's perfect for cloud environments and microservice architectures.
This guide walks through the entire setup, showing how to get this new feature talking to Keycloak. We'll follow the full path — configuring the identity provider, preparing PostgreSQL, writing an OAuth token validator, and verifying the whole thing works from psql using the Device Flow.