pgAdmin 4

pgAdmin 4 is a popular graphical user interface that makes it easy to work with PostgreSQL databases from a web-based client. With its ability to manage and orchestrate changes for PostgreSQL users, the PostgreSQL Operator is a natural partner to keep a pgAdmin 4 environment synchronized with a PostgreSQL environment.

The PostgreSQL Operator lets you deploy a pgAdmin 4 environment alongside a PostgreSQL cluster and keeps users’ database credentials synchronized. You can simply log into pgAdmin 4 with your PostgreSQL username and password and immediately have access to your databases.

Deploying pgAdmin 4

If you’ve done the quickstart, add the following fields to the spec and reapply; if you don’t have any Postgres clusters running, add the fields to a spec, and apply.

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      image: registry.developers.crunchydata.com/crunchydata/crunchy-pgadmin4:ubi8-4.30-2
      dataVolumeClaimSpec:
        accessModes:
        - "ReadWriteOnce"
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 1Gi

This creates a pgAdmin 4 deployment unique to this PostgreSQL cluster and synchronizes the PostgreSQL user information. To access pgAdmin 4, you can set up a port-forward to the Service, which follows the pattern <clusterName>-pgadmin, to port 5050:

kubectl port-forward svc/hippo-pgadmin 5050:5050

Point your browser at http://localhost:5050 and you will be prompted to log in. Use your database username with @pgo appended and your database password. In our case, the pgAdmin username is hippo@pgo and the password is found in the user secret, hippo-pguser-hippo:

PG_CLUSTER_USER_SECRET_NAME=hippo-pguser-hippo

PGPASSWORD=$(kubectl get secrets -n postgres-operator "${PG_CLUSTER_USER_SECRET_NAME}" -o go-template='{{.data.password | base64decode}}')
PGUSER=$(kubectl get secrets -n postgres-operator "${PG_CLUSTER_USER_SECRET_NAME}" -o go-template='{{.data.user | base64decode}}')

User Synchronization

The operator will synchronize users defined in the spec (e.g., in spec.users) with the pgAdmin 4 deployment. Any user created in the database without being defined in the spec will not be synchronized.

Custom Configuration

You can adjust some pgAdmin settings through the userInterface.pgAdmin.config field. For example, set SHOW_GRAVATAR_IMAGE to False to disable automatic profile pictures:

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      config:
        settings:
          SHOW_GRAVATAR_IMAGE: False

You can also mount files to /etc/pgadmin/conf.d inside the pgAdmin container using projected volumes. The following mounts useful.txt of Secret mysecret to /etc/pgadmin/conf.d/useful.txt:

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      config:
        files:
        - secret:
            name: mysecret
            items:
            - key: useful.txt
        - configMap:
            name: myconfigmap
            optional: false

Kerberos Configuration

You can configure pgAdmin to authenticate its users using Kerberos SPNEGO. In addition to setting AUTHENTICATION_SOURCES and KRB_APP_HOST_NAME, you need to enable KERBEROS_AUTO_CREATE_USER and mount a krb5.conf and a keytab file:

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      config:
        settings:
          AUTHENTICATION_SOURCES: ['kerberos']
          KERBEROS_AUTO_CREATE_USER: True
          KRB_APP_HOST_NAME: my.service.principal.name.local # without HTTP class
          KRB_KTNAME: /etc/pgadmin/conf.d/krb5.keytab
        files:
        - secret:
            name: mysecret
            items:
            - key: krb5.conf
            - key: krb5.keytab

LDAP Configuration

You can configure pgAdmin to authenticate its users using LDAP passwords. In addition to setting AUTHENTICATION_SOURCES and LDAP_SERVER_URI, you need to enable LDAP_AUTO_CREATE_USER:

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      config:
        settings:
          AUTHENTICATION_SOURCES: ['ldap']
          LDAP_AUTO_CREATE_USER: True
          LDAP_SERVER_URI: ldaps://my.ds.example.com

When using a dedicated user to bind, you can store the LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD setting in a Secret and reference it through the ldapBindPassword field:

  userInterface:
    pgAdmin:
      config:
        ldapBindPassword:
          name: ldappass
          key: mypw

Deleting pgAdmin 4

You can remove the pgAdmin 4 deployment by removing the userInterface field from the spec.