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PostgreSQL Elastic Search foreign data wrapper

This allows you to index data in Elastic Search and then search it from PostgreSQL. You can write as well as read.

SYNOPSIS

Supported Versions

Elastic Search Dependency Installation Command
5 sudo pip install "elasticsearch>=5,<6"
6 sudo pip install "elasticsearch>=6,<7"
7 sudo pip install "elasticsearch>=7,<8"
8 sudo pip install "elasticsearch>=8,<9"
PostgreSQL Dependency Installation Command
9.4 sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.4-python-multicorn
9.5 sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.5-python-multicorn
9.6 sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.6-python-multicorn
10 sudo apt-get install postgresql-10-python-multicorn
11 sudo apt-get install postgresql-11-python-multicorn
12 sudo apt-get install postgresql-12-python3-multicorn
13 sudo apt-get install postgresql-13-python3-multicorn

Please note that the Debian package for Multicorn on PostgreSQL 12+ requires Python 3.

PostgreSQL 13+

For PostgreSQL versions 13+ you can use Multicorn 2 which is actively maintained. You can consult the Multicorn 2 README for installation instructions, or review the Dockerfiles associated with this project to see how I have installed it. I would recommend using the OSCG.IO approach as it seems to be the easiest.

PostgreSQL Dockerfile
13 Dockerfile
14 Dockerfile
15 Dockerfile

Installation

This requires installation on the PostgreSQL server, and has system level dependencies. You can install the dependencies with:

sudo apt-get install python python-pip

You should install the version of multicorn that is specific to your postgres version. See the table in Supported Versions for installation commands. The multicorn package is also only available from Ubuntu Xenial (16.04) onwards. If you cannot install multicorn in this way then you can use pgxn to install it.

This uses the Elastic Search client which has release versions that correspond to the major version of the Elastic Search server. You should install the elasticsearch dependency separately. See the table in Supported Versions for installation commands.

Once the dependencies are installed you can install the foreign data wrapper using pip:

sudo pip install pg_es_fdw

Usage

A running configuration for this can be found in the docker-compose.yml within this folder.

The basic steps are:

  • Load the extension
  • Create the server
  • Create the foreign table
  • Populate the foreign table
  • Query the foreign table...

Load extension and Create server

CREATE EXTENSION multicorn;

CREATE SERVER multicorn_es FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER multicorn
OPTIONS (
  wrapper 'pg_es_fdw.ElasticsearchFDW'
);

Create the foreign table

CREATE FOREIGN TABLE articles_es
    (
        id BIGINT,
        title TEXT,
        body TEXT,
        metadata JSON,
        query TEXT,
        score NUMERIC,
        sort TEXT
    )
SERVER multicorn_es
OPTIONS
    (
        host 'elasticsearch',
        port '9200',
        index 'article-index',
        type 'article',
        rowid_column 'id',
        query_column 'query',
        query_dsl 'false',
        score_column 'score',
        default_sort 'last_updated:desc',
        sort_column 'sort',
        refresh 'false',
        complete_returning 'false',
        timeout '20',
        username 'elastic',
        password 'changeme'
    )
;

Elastic Search 7 and greater does not require the type option, which corresponds to the doc_type used in prior versions of Elastic Search.

This corresponds to an Elastic Search index which contains a title and body fields. The other fields have special meaning:

  • The rowid_column (id above) is mapped to the Elastic Search document id
  • The query_column (query above) accepts Elastic Search queries to filter the rows
  • The query_dsl (false above) indicates if the query is in the URI Search syntax or the json Query DSL. The query will use the URI Search syntax by default. To use the Query DSL set this option to "true".
  • The score_column (score above) returns the score for the document against the query
  • The sort_column (sort above) accepts an Elastic Search column to sort by
  • The refresh option controls if inserts and updates should wait for an index refresh (Elastic Search documentation). The acceptable values are "false" (default), "wait_for" and "true"
  • The complete_returning options controls if Elastic Search is queries for the document after an insert to support RETURNING fields other than the document id. The acceptable values are "false" (default) and "true"
  • The scheme field specifies the scheme of the Elastic Search index
  • The timeout field specifies the connection timeout in seconds
  • The username field specifies the basic auth username used
  • The password field specifies the basic auth password used
  • Any other options are passed through to the elasticsearch client, use this to specify things like ssl

All of these are optional. Enabling refresh or complete_returning comes with a performance penalty.

To use basic auth you must provide both a username and a password, even if the password is blank.

JSON and JSONB

When elasticsearch returns nested data it is serialized to TEXT as json before being returned. This means you can create columns with JSON or JSONB types and the data will be correctly converted on read. If you write to a JSON or JSONB column then the data is passed to elasticsearch as json.

As the data is converted on the fly per query the benefits of using JSONB over JSON are limited.

Elastic Search Authentication

Currently basic auth is supported for authentication. You can provide the username and password by setting the username and password options when creating the table. You must provide both, even if the password is blank. If you do not provide them then basic auth is disabled for the table.

If you need to use other forms of authentication then please open an issue.

Populate the foreign table

INSERT INTO articles_es
    (
        id,
        title,
        body,
        metadata
    )
VALUES
    (
        1,
        'foo',
        'spike',
        '{"score": 3}'::json
    );

It is possible to write documents to Elastic Search using the foreign data wrapper. This feature was introduced in PostgreSQL 9.3.

Query the foreign table

To select all documents:

SELECT
    id,
    title,
    body,
    metadata
FROM
    articles_es
;
URI Search Query

To filter the documents using a URI Search query:

SELECT
    id,
    title,
    body,
    metadata,
    score
FROM
    articles_es
WHERE
    query = 'body:chess'
;

This uses the URI Search from Elastic Search. This is the default search syntax, and can be explicitly selected by setting the query_dsl option to "false".

Query DSL Query

To filter the documents using a Query DSL query you must ensure that you have set the query_dsl option to "true" when creating the table.

SELECT
    id,
    title,
    body,
    metadata,
    score
FROM
    articles_es
WHERE
    query = '{"query":{"bool":{"filter":[{"term":{"body":"chess"}}]}}}'
;

This uses the Query DSL from Elastic Search. This is not the default search syntax and must be specifically enabled. You cannot enable this on a per-query basis.

Sorting the Results

By default Elastic Search returns the documents in score order, descending. If you wish to sort by a different field you can use the sort_column option.

The sort_column accepts a column to sort by and a direction, for example last_updated:desc. This is passed to Elastic Search so it should be the name of the Elastic Search column. If you always want sorted results then you can use the default_sort option to specify the sort when creating the table.

To break ties you can specify further columns to sort on. You just need to separate the columns with a comma, for example unit:asc,last_updated:desc.

SELECT
    id,
    title,
    body,
    metadata,
    score
FROM
    articles_es
WHERE
    sort = 'id:asc'
;

Refresh and RETURNING

When inserting or updating documents in Elastic Search the document ID is returned. This can be accessed through the RETURNING statement without any additional performance loss.

To get further fields requires reading the document from Elastic Search again. This comes at a cost because an immediate read after an insert may not return the updated document. Elastic Search periodically refreshes the indexes and at that point the document will be available.

To wait for a refresh before returning you can use the refresh parameter. This accepts three values: "false" (the default), "true" and "wait_for". You can read about them here. If you choose to use the refresh setting then it is recommended to use "wait_for".

Once you have chosen to wait for the refresh you can enable full returning support by setting complete_returning to "true". Both the refresh and complete_returning options are set during table creation. If you do not wish to incur the associated costs for every query then you can create two tables with different settings.

Caveats

Elastic Search does not support transactions, so the elasticsearch index is not guaranteed to be synchronized with the canonical version in PostgreSQL. Unfortunately this is the case even for serializable isolation level transactions. It would however be possible to check against Elastic Search version field and locking.

Rollback is currently not supported.

Tests

There are end to end tests that use docker to create a PostgreSQL and Elastic Search database. These are then populated with data and tests are run against them.

These require docker and docker-compose (see the installation instructions).

These currently target Python 3.11.9 which you can install with pyenv.

These also require poetry to manage the python dependencies.

Once you have installed python 3.11.9, docker, docker-compose and poetry you can install the requirements with:

make requirements

The makefile will test all versions if you run make test:

➜ make test
poetry run tests/run.py --pg 13 14 15 --es 5 6 7 8
Testing PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test read - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test nested-read - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test sorted-read - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test query - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test json-query - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test insert returning id - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test insert returning row - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test insert waiting for refresh - PASS
PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 5: Test delete returning row - PASS
Testing PostgreSQL 13 with Elasticsearch 6
...
Testing PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test read - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test nested-read - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test sorted-read - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test query - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test json-query - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test insert returning id - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test insert returning row - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test insert waiting for refresh - PASS
PostgreSQL 15 with Elasticsearch 8: Test delete returning row - PASS
PASS

If you want to run the tests for specific versions then you can then run the tests using tests/run.py. This takes the PostgreSQL version(s) to test using the --pg argument and the Elastic Search versions to test with the --es argument. The currently supported versions of PostgreSQL are 13, 14 and 15. PostgreSQL back to 9.4 is supported on a best effort basis, but the docker images are unavailable and so the tests cannot run and fixes cannot be made if there are errors. The currently supported versions of Elastic Search are 5 to 8. You can pass multiple versions to test against all of them.

Test Failure Messages

Error starting userland proxy: listen tcp 0.0.0.0:5432: bind: address already in use

You are already running something that listens to 5432. Try stopping your running postgres server:

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql stop

max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]

Your system does not have the appropriate limits in place to run a production ready instance of elasticsearch. Try increasing it:

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

This setting will revert after a reboot.

Migrating from <=0.6.0

In version 0.7.0 the TEXT representation of json objects changed from HSTORE to JSON. If you have been mapping json objects to HSTORE columns then you should change the column type to JSON. The arrow operator exists for json so queries should not need rewriting.