install_coldfront

The install_coldfront role installs the ColdFront tiered-storage extension onto an existing pgEdge Distributed Postgres node, rather than standing up a separate instance. ColdFront keeps recent data in native Postgres partitions and archives older data to Iceberg on S3-compatible storage, readable and writable through the same SQL with no application changes.

The role performs the following tasks on inventory hosts:

• Install the ColdFront Postgres extension package, the pgedge-coldfront package holding the archiver, partitioner and compactor, and pgedge-python3-psycopg2.

Role Dependencies

This role requires the following roles for normal operation:

• role_config provides shared configuration variables to the role.
• init_server refuses a pg_version ColdFront packages are not published for, before anything is installed.
• install_pgedge installs the base Postgres package this role's package depends on.

When to Use

ColdFront is opt-in per cluster, through coldfront_enabled on the pgedge group. Add this role to the pgedge play of a cluster playbook, after install_pgedge and before setup_postgres. setup_postgres then preloads ColdFront's libraries, and Postgres will not start with a library it cannot find. Follow setup_postgres with setup_coldfront_db, and setup_pgedge with setup_coldfront.

In the following example, the playbook installs and sets up ColdFront only where coldfront_enabled is set:

- hosts: pgedge
  collections:
    - pgedge.platform
  roles:
    - install_repos
    - install_pgedge
    - role: install_coldfront
      when: coldfront_enabled | bool
    - setup_postgres
    - role: setup_coldfront_db
      when: coldfront_enabled | bool
    - setup_pgedge
    - role: setup_coldfront
      when: coldfront_enabled | bool

ColdFront also needs Lakekeeper (install_lakekeeper and setup_lakekeeper) serving before setup_coldfront runs, and an S3-compatible object store reachable from this host. The sample-playbooks/simple-cluster-coldfront playbook sets up Lakekeeper in a play of its own ahead of this one, for the lakekeeper group. See the ColdFront Configuration reference for the settings both need.

Configuration

This role uses the following parameters from the inventory file:

The settings ColdFront runs on once installed, such as its database and its DuckDB role, belong to setup_coldfront.

See the Configuration Reference and ColdFront Configuration for descriptions and defaults.

How It Works

Supported releases

ColdFront packages exist for Postgres 16, 17, and 18, confirmed against the package lists on apt.pgedge.com and dnf.pgedge.com. They are listed in coldfront_supported_pg_versions, and init_server refuses coldfront_enabled with any other pg_version, before anything is installed, rather than letting this role fail with an opaque package-manager error.

Package names differ by OS family

The Postgres extension package depends on the base Postgres package install_pgedge already installed, plus pg_duckdb and the patched DuckDB extensions, but its own name differs by OS family:

Debian nests the version between postgresql and the extension name; RHEL suffixes the version onto the extension name instead, and drops postgresql from the name entirely. pgedge-coldfront (the archiver, partitioner, and compactor) and pgedge-coldfront-duckdb-extensions (the patched DuckDB extensions) share the same name on both OS families.

Idempotency

This role is idempotent and safe to re-run on inventory hosts. Package installation is a no-op once already done.