Request to update documentation of the 'postgres upgrade guide'

[dtrai2]

I recently upgraded my plausible instance and followed the release notes for v1.5.1. When trying to upgrade my PstgrSQL to 14 I had some difficulty with the upgrade guide. In step 4 the guide describes making a backup of the postgres plausible_db database:

> docker compose exec plausible_db sh -c "pg_dump -U postgres plausible_db > /backup/plausible_db.bak"

and in step 11 that's being loaded again with:

> docker compose exec plausible_db sh -c "psql -U postgres -d plausible_db < /backup/plausible_db.bak"

On my system I didn't had a plausible_db database though, mine was called plausible_dev. So to align this I tried to make a backup of my plausible_dev database, make the upgrade and then load the data back into a new plausible_db database, but that didn't work either. When running the plausible instance it didn't had my user data anymore. Only after doing it all again, and creating another plausible_dev database after the upgrade and loading the data into that one, it all worked.

I don't know why on my system I have a plausible_dev database, but maybe if I am not the only one it would be good to update the upgrade guide such that it gives a hint to look for plausible_dev databases as well.

[ruslandoga]

👋 @dtrai2

Could you please share your plausible_db and plausible sections from docker-compose.yml. And DATABASE_URL from plausible-conf.env (if it's set).

[ruslandoga]

I think it'd be nice to first understand why you have plausible_dev instead of plausible_db

AFAIK plausible_dev is the database that is created in dev env by default.

[dtrai2]

Ah that's true indeed. And I see already it is probably the DATABASE_URL in the plausible-conf.env. I deployed the instance quite a long time ago and never touched it again. The DATABASE_URL is set to postgres:https://postgres:postgres@plausible_db:5433/plausible_dev. I did check the old documentation from one and a half years ago (see here) and there it says the default DATABASE_URL was postgres:https://localhost:5432/plausible_dev. So it is probably just a relic from old times.

Here are also the requested parts of my docker-compose.yml setup:

plausible_db:
  image: postgres:14-alpine
  restart: always
  volumes:
    - db-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  environment:
    - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=<SECRET>
  expose:
    - "5433"
  command: -p 5433

plausible:
  image: plausible/analytics:v1.5.1
  restart: always
  command: sh -c "sleep 10 && /entrypoint.sh db createdb && /entrypoint.sh db migrate && /entrypoint.sh run"
  depends_on:
    - plausible_db
    - plausible_events_db
  ports:
    - 127.0.0.1:8200:8000
  env_file:
    - plausible-conf.env

So maybe as a compromise you could add a small hint to the upgrade guide that people should look for the database name in DATABASE_URL inside the plausible-conf.env file before they try to do the backup.