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Postgres

This page guides you through the process of setting up the Postgres destination connector.

Direct Load

Starting with version 3.0.0, the Postgres destination uses Direct Load architecture. This means data is written directly to final tables without using intermediate raw tables, providing improved performance and reduced storage costs.

For migration details and backward compatibility options, see the Postgres Migration Guide.

Warning​

warning

Postgres, while an excellent relational database, is not a data warehouse. Please only consider using postgres as a destination for small data volumes (e.g. less than 10GB) or for testing purposes. For larger data volumes, we recommend using a data warehouse like BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift. Learn more here.

Prerequisites​

To use the Postgres destination, you'll need:

  • A Postgres server version 9.5 or above

Calabi Connect only supports connecting to your Postgres instances with SSL or TLS encryption. TLS is used by default. Other than that, you can proceed with the open-source instructions below.

You'll need the following information to configure the Postgres destination:

  • Host - The host name of the server.
  • Port - The port number the server is listening on. Defaults to the PostgreSQL™ standard port number (5432).
  • Username
  • Password
  • Default Schema Name - Specify the schema (or several schemas separated by commas) to be set in the search-path. These schemas will be used to resolve unqualified object names used in statements executed over this connection.
  • Database - The database name. The default is to connect to a database with the same name as the user name.
  • JDBC URL Params (optional)

Refer to this guide for more details

Configure Network Access​

Make sure your Postgres database can be accessed by Calabi Connect. If your database is within a VPC, you may need to allow access from the IP you're using to expose Calabi Connect.

Step 1: Set up Postgres​

Permissions​

You need a Postgres user with the following permissions:

  • can create tables and write rows.
  • can create schemas e.g:

You can create such a user by running:

CREATE USER airbyte_user WITH PASSWORD '<password>';
GRANT CREATE, TEMPORARY ON DATABASE <database> TO airbyte_user;

You can also use a pre-existing user but we highly recommend creating a dedicated user for Calabi Connect.

Step 2: Set up the Postgres connector in Calabi Connect​

Target Database​

You will need to choose an existing database or create a new database that will be used to store synced data from Calabi Connect.

Naming Conventions​

From Postgres SQL Identifiers syntax:

  • SQL identifiers and key words must begin with a letter (a-z, but also letters with diacritical marks and non-Latin letters) or an underscore (_).

  • Subsequent characters in an identifier or key word can be letters, underscores, digits (0-9), or dollar signs ($).

    Note that dollar signs are not allowed in identifiers according to the SQL standard, so their use might render applications less portable. The SQL standard will not define a key word that contains digits or starts or ends with an underscore, so identifiers of this form are safe against possible conflict with future extensions of the standard.

  • The system uses no more than NAMEDATALEN-1 bytes of an identifier; longer names can be written in commands, but they will be truncated. By default, NAMEDATALEN is 64 so the maximum identifier length is 63 bytes

  • Quoted identifiers can contain any character, except the character with code zero. (To include a double quote, write two double quotes.) This allows constructing table or column names that would otherwise not be possible, such as ones containing spaces or ampersands. The length limitation still applies.

  • Quoting an identifier also makes it case-sensitive, whereas unquoted names are always folded to lower case.

  • In order to make your applications portable and less error-prone, use consistent quoting with each name (either always quote it or never quote it).

info

Calabi Connect Postgres destination creates final tables and their corresponding columns using Quoted identifiers, preserving the case sensitivity. Special characters in table and column names are replaced with underscores.

When using the legacy "Raw tables only" mode, raw tables and schemas are created using Unquoted identifiers by replacing any special characters with an underscore.

For Calabi Connect:

  1. Log into your Calabi Connect account.

  2. In the left navigation bar, click Destinations. In the top-right corner, click new destination.

  3. On the Set up the destination page, enter the name for the Postgres connector and select Postgres from the Destination type dropdown.

  4. Enter a name for your destination.

  5. For the Host, Port, and DB Name, enter the hostname, port number, and name for your Postgres database.

  6. List the Default Schemas.

    note

    The schema names are case sensitive. The 'public' schema is set by default. Multiple schemas may be used at one time. No schemas set explicitly - will sync all of existing.

  7. For User and Password, enter the username and password you created in Step 1.

  8. For Calabi Connect, toggle the switch to connect using SSL. Calabi Connect uses SSL by default.

  9. For SSL Modes, select:

    • disable to disable encrypted communication between Calabi Connect and the destination
    • allow to enable encrypted communication only when required by the destination
    • prefer to allow unencrypted communication only when the destination doesn't support encryption
    • require to always require encryption. Note: The connection will fail if the destination doesn't support encryption.
    • verify-ca to always require encryption and verify that the destination has a valid SSL certificate
    • verify-full to always require encryption and verify the identity of the destination

  10. To customize the JDBC connection beyond common options, specify additional supported JDBC URL parameters as key-value pairs separated by the symbol & in the JDBC URL Parameters (Advanced) field.

    Example: key1=value1&key2=value2&key3=value3

    These parameters will be added at the end of the JDBC URL that Calabi Connect will use to connect to your Postgres database.

    The connector now supports connectTimeout and defaults to 60 seconds. Setting connectTimeout to 0 seconds will set the timeout to the longest time available.

    Note: Do not use the following keys in JDBC URL Params field as they will be overwritten by Calabi Connect: currentSchema, user, password, ssl, and sslmode.

warning

This is an advanced configuration option. Users are advised to use it with caution.

  1. For SSH Tunnel Method, select:

    • No Tunnel for a direct connection to the database
    • SSH Key Authentication to use an RSA Private as your secret for establishing the SSH tunnel
    • Password Authentication to use a password as your secret for establishing the SSH tunnel
warning

Since Calabi Connect requires encrypted communication, select SSH Key Authentication or Password Authentication if you selected disable, allow, or prefer as the SSL Mode; otherwise, the connection will fail.

  1. Click Set up destination.

Supported sync modes​

The Postgres destination connector supports the following sync modes:

Sync modeSupported?
Full Refresh - OverwriteYes
Full Refresh - AppendYes
Full Refresh - Overwrite + DedupedYes
Incremental Sync - AppendYes
Incremental Sync - Append + DedupedYes

Schema map​

Output Schema (Direct Load)​

The Postgres destination uses Direct Load architecture. Each stream is written directly to a final table in your configured schema. The table includes your data columns plus the following Calabi Connect metadata columns:

  • _airbyte_raw_id: a uuid assigned by Calabi Connect to each event that is processed. The column type in Postgres is VARCHAR.
  • _airbyte_extracted_at: a timestamp representing when the event was pulled from the data source. The column type in Postgres is TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE.
  • _airbyte_meta: a jsonb column containing metadata about the record, including sync information and any schema changes. The column type in Postgres is JSONB.
  • _airbyte_generation_id: an identifier for the generation of the sync. The column type in Postgres is BIGINT.

Output Schema (Raw Tables) - Deprecated​

Deprecated

Raw tables are deprecated starting with version 3.0.0. The connector now uses Direct Load to write directly to final tables. For backward compatibility options and migration guidance, see the Postgres Migration Guide.

Legacy Raw Tables Documentation

Each stream will be mapped to a separate raw table in Postgres. The default schema in which the raw tables are created is airbyte_internal. This can be overridden in the configuration. Each table will contain 4 columns:

  • _airbyte_raw_id: a uuid assigned by Calabi Connect to each event that is processed. The column type in Postgres is VARCHAR.
  • _airbyte_extracted_at: a timestamp representing when the event was pulled from the data source. The column type in Postgres is TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE.
  • _airbyte_loaded_at: a timestamp representing when the row was processed into final table. The column type in Postgres is TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE.
  • _airbyte_data: a json blob representing with the event data. The column type in Postgres is JSONB.

Final Tables Data type mapping​

Calabi Connect TypePostgres Type
stringVARCHAR
numberDECIMAL
integerBIGINT
booleanBOOLEAN
objectJSONB
arrayJSONB
timestamp_with_timezoneTIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
timestamp_without_timezoneTIMESTAMP
time_with_timezoneTIME WITH TIME ZONE
time_without_timezoneTIME
dateDATE

Naming limitations​

Postgres restricts all identifiers to 63 characters or less. If your stream includes column names longer than 63 characters, they will be truncated to this length. If this results in two columns having the same name, Calabi Connect may modify these column names to avoid the collision.

Creating dependent objects​

caution

This section involves running DROP ... CASCADE on the tables that Calabi Connect produces. Make sure you fully understand the consequences before enabling this option. Permanent data loss is possible with this option!

You may want to create objects that depend on the tables generated by Calabi Connect, such as views. If you do so, we strongly recommend:

  • Using a tool like dbt to automate the creation
  • And using an orchestrator to trigger dbt.

This is because you will need to enable the "Drop tables with CASCADE" option. The connector sometimes needs to recreate the tables; if you have created dependent objects, Postgres will require the connector to run drop statements with CASCADE enabled. However, this will cause the connector to also drop the dependent objects. Therefore, you MUST have a way to recreate those dependent objects from scratch.

Tutorials​

Now that you have set up the Postgres destination connector, check out the following tutorials:

Vendor-Specific Connector Limitations​

For vendor-specific limitations and known issues, see the Postgres Troubleshooting Guide.

Namespace support​

This destination supports namespaces. The namespace maps to a Postgres schema.