Using PGD CLI v5
What is the PGD CLI
The PGD CLI is a convenient way to connect to and manage your PGD cluster. You will need the credentials of a Postgres users with PGD superuser privileges - the bdr_superuser role - or equivalent (e.g. edb_admin on BigAnimal distributed high availability) to use it.
Setting passwords
PGD CLI does not interactively prompt for your user's password. You must pass your password using one of the following methods:
- Adding an entry to your
.pgpass
password file which includes the host, port, database name, user name, and password. - Setting the password in the
PGPASSWORD
environment variable. - Including the password in the connection string.
We recommend the first option, as the other options don't scale well with multiple databases or compromise password confidentiality.
Running the PGD CLI
Once you have installed pgd-cli, run the pgd
command to access the PGD command line interface. The pgd
command will need details of which host, port, and database to connect to, along with your username and password.
Passing a database connection string
Use the --dsn
flag to pass a database connection string to the pgd
command. You don't need a configuration file when you pass the connection string with the --dsn
flag. The flag takes precedence even if a configuration file is present. For example:
See pgd in the command reference for a description of the command options.
Specifying a configuration file
If a pgd-cli-config.yml
file is in /etc/edb/pgd-cli
or $HOME/.edb/pgd-cli
, pgd
will automatically use it. You can override
this behavior using the optional -f
or --config-file
flag. For example:
Specifying the output format
Use the -o
or --output
flag to change the default output format to JSON or YAML. For example:
The PGD CLI supports the following output formats:
Setting | Format | Considerations |
---|---|---|
none | Tabular | Default format. This setting presents the data in tabular form. |
json | JSON | Presents the raw data with no formatting. For some commands, the JSON output might show more data than the tabular output, such as extra fields and more detailed messages. |
yaml | YAML | Similar to the JSON output, but as YAML and with the fields ordered alphabetically. Experimental and may not be fully supported in future versions. |
Accessing the command line help
To list the supported commands, enter:
For help with a specific command and its parameters, enter pgd help <command_name>
. For example:
Avoiding stale data
The PGD CLI can return stale data on the state of the cluster if it's still connecting to nodes previously parted from the cluster. Edit the pgd-cli-config.yml
file, or change your --dsn
settings to ensure you are connecting to active nodes in the cluster.