Install Rudder server with an external database

Rudder uses a PostgreSQL server to store its reports.

People having a dedicated database server or having a report database becoming too big can setup an external database instead of letting Rudder manage one on the Rudder server itself.

Install a new server with a separate database

Install PostgreSQL server

If you have to install the PostgreSQL service on a separate server, we provide here a simplified PostgreSQL documentation.

If your organization has a database administrator, just ask him to create a new database with an associated user and permissions.

If in doubt, please always refer to the officiel PostgreSQL documentation https://www.postgresql.org/docs/

As much as possible, install your distribution postgresql package on the target SQL host. Check that you have the minimu required PostgreSQL version and install it.

Rudder requires PostgreSQL 10 or higher.

# rhel,centos,...
$ yum install postgresql-server
$ /usr/pgsql-*/bin/postgresql*-setup initdb

# debian,ubuntu
$ apt-get install postgresql

# SLES
$ zypper install postgresql-server

On RHEL you must also initialize the database :

$ postgresql-setup --initdb
$ systemctl start postgresql

Create the rudder database and the rudder user with its password (the names can be changed)?

# please use a secure password
$ su postgres -c "psql -q -c \"CREATE USER rudder WITH PASSWORD '${PASSWORD}'\""

$ su postgres -c "psql -q -c 'CREATE DATABASE rudder WITH OWNER = rudder'"

Make sure to give access to this user from the outside by editing pg_hba.conf.

On debian like it is /etc/postgresql/<your version>/main/pg_hba.conf, on redhat like it is /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf.

In any case, it can be found with the command : ̀ su postgres -c "psql -t -P format=unaligned -c 'show hba_file';"`

# this line must be adapted to you installation and put into pg_hba.conf
# host  <database>         <user>          <rudder server IP>/32       md5
host    rudder             rudder          196.168.0.1/32           md5

Make sure your postgresql server listens on a public interface. In postgresql.conf.

On debian like it is /etc/postgresql/<your version>/main/postgresql.conf, on redhat like it is /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf.

In any case, it should be in the same directory as pg_hba.conf.

listen_addresses = '*'

Finally restart PostgreSQL service:

systemctl restart postgresql

Install rudder-external-db

On Rudder host, first install rudder-external-db, before installing any rudder package:

# rhel,centos,...
$ yum install rudder-external-db

# debian,ubuntu
$ apt-get install rudder-external-db

# SLES
$ zypper install rudder-external-db

You now have everythng to fill in the configuration file /opt/rudder/etc/external-db.conf:

# Host where rudder server must connect to access the database
DB_HOST="postgresql.example.com"

# Database user and password, to create them ask your database administrator or use the following command
#    su postgres -c "psql -q -c \"CREATE USER ${DB_USER} WITH PASSWORD '${DB_PASSWORD}'\""
DB_USER="rudder"
DB_PASSWORD="xxx"

# Postgresql database name, to create it ask your database administrator or use the following command
#    su postgres -c "psql -q -c \"CREATE DATABASE ${DB_NAME} WITH OWNER = ${DB_USER}\""
DB_NAME="rudder"

Install Rudder

Finally follow the regular Rudder server installation process depending on your system: Debian/Ubuntu | RHEL/CentOS | SLES | Amazon Linux 2

← on Amazon Linux 2 on Debian/Ubuntu →