CloudNativePG (CNPG)

• Kubernetes operator for running PostgreSQL clusters

• Manages primary/replica topology, failover, backups, and connection routing via auto-created Services

Installation

# Install the operator
kubectl apply --server-side -f "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg/release-1.29/releases/cnpg-1.29.1.yaml"

# Verify
kubectl rollout status deployment -n cnpg-system cnpg-controller-manager

# Install kubectl plugin: https://cloudnative-pg.io/docs/devel/kubectl-plugin/#generation-of-installation-manifests
curl -sSfL \
  https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg/raw/main/hack/install-cnpg-plugin.sh | \
  sudo sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin

Create a cluster

• No Deployment or StatefulSet is created, the CR manages the pods directly, rather than delegating to a built-in workload controller

# Create a cluster
kubectl apply -f Cluster.yaml

# Watch pods
kubectl get pods -l cnpg.io/cluster=mycluster -w

Connect to cluster

The operator auto-creates Services and a Secret with credentials:

• mycluster-rw → read/write (primary)
• mycluster-ro → read-only (replicas)
• mycluster-r → any instance

# password for the default 'app' user / 'app' database
kubectl get secret mycluster-app -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d

# port-forward and connect
kubectl port-forward svc/mycluster-rw 5432:5432
psql -h localhost -U app -d app

# cnpg kubectl plugin
kubectl krew install cnpg
kubectl cnpg status pg-cluster