Using PostgreSQL
As many applications depend on PostgreSQL as their database, you eventually need it in order for your tests to run. Below you are guided how to do this with the Docker and Shell executors of GitLab Runner.
Use PostgreSQL with the Docker executor
If you’re using GitLab Runner with the Docker executor, you basically have everything set up already.
First, in your .gitlab-ci.yml
add:
services:
- postgres:12.2-alpine
variables:
POSTGRES_DB: nice_marmot
POSTGRES_USER: runner
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ""
POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD: trust
To set values for the POSTGRES_DB
, POSTGRES_USER
,
POSTGRES_PASSWORD
and POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD
,
assign them to a CI/CD variable in the user interface,
then assign that variable to the corresponding variable in your
.gitlab-ci.yml
file.
And then configure your application to use the database, for example:
Host: postgres
User: runner
Password: ''
Database: nice_marmot
If you’re wondering why we used postgres
for the Host
, read more at
How services are linked to the job.
You can also use any other Docker image available on Docker Hub.
For example, to use PostgreSQL 9.3, the service becomes postgres:9.3
.
The postgres
image can accept some environment variables. For more details,
see the documentation on Docker Hub.
Use PostgreSQL with the Shell executor
You can also use PostgreSQL on manually configured servers that are using GitLab Runner with the Shell executor.
First install the PostgreSQL server:
sudo apt-get install -y postgresql postgresql-client libpq-dev
The next step is to create a user, so sign in to PostgreSQL:
sudo -u postgres psql -d template1
Then create a user (in our case runner
) which is used by your
application. Change $password
in the command below to a real strong password.
template1=#
in the following commands, as that’s part of
the PostgreSQL prompt.template1=# CREATE USER runner WITH PASSWORD '$password' CREATEDB;
The created user has the privilege to create databases (CREATEDB
). The
following steps describe how to create a database explicitly for that user, but
having that privilege can be useful if in your testing framework you have tools
that drop and create databases.
Create the database and grant all privileges to it for the user runner
:
template1=# CREATE DATABASE nice_marmot OWNER runner;
If all went well, you can now quit the database session:
template1=# \q
Now, try to connect to the newly created database with the user runner
to
check that everything is in place.
psql -U runner -h localhost -d nice_marmot -W
This command explicitly directs psql
to connect to localhost to use the md5
authentication. If you omit this step, you are denied access.
Finally, configure your application to use the database, for example:
Host: localhost
User: runner
Password: $password
Database: nice_marmot
Example project
We have set up an Example PostgreSQL Project for your convenience that runs on GitLab.com using our publicly available shared runners.
Want to hack on it? Fork it, commit, and push your changes. Within a few moments the changes are picked by a public runner and the job begins.