Use Liquibase with Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL

Last updated: July 23, 2025

Google Cloud SQL is a fully-managed database management system that is compatible with Liquibase.

This guide covers how to set up Liquibase with Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL. For more information, see Cloud SQL.

Verified versions

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Before you begin

  • Install Liquibase.

  • Ensure you have Java installed. Liquibase requires Java to run. If you used the Liquibase Installer, Java is included automatically. Otherwise, you must install Java manually.

  • If you use Liquibase Pro, or a Liquibase Pro extension, confirm that you have a valid license key.

Procedure

1

Install drivers

The latest version of Liquibase has a pre-installed driver for this database in the $LIQUIBASE_HOME/internal/lib directory, so you don't need to install it yourself.

If you prefer, you can use environment variables to point to the directory where Liquibase is installed on your machine. You can set environment variables using your operating system's shell. The location of $LIQUIBASE_HOME will depend on where Liquibase was installed on your machine.

Note for Maven users: If you're running Liquibase using the Maven plugin using mvn liquibase:update, installing the extension with Maven ensures the right files are available and everything works together automatically. You can manage these extensions by adding them as dependencies in your project’s pom.xml file. Configuring Maven this way ensures that the necessary JAR files are retrieved from Maven Central during the build phase.

Google Cloud SQL JAR files

  1. Download the Google API Client Library for Java ZIP file: google-api-client-assembly-<version>.

  2. Go to that file's google-api-java-client/libs directory and add all JAR files to the liquibase/lib directory.

  3. Download the source code for the latest version of GoogleCloudPlatform/cloud-sql-jdbc-socket-factory.

  4. Extract the source code ZIP. In the directory containing the pom.xml file, run mvn -P jar-with-dependencies clean package -DskipTests.

  5. Navigate to the core/target and jdbc/postgres/target directories. From each directory, add the JAR file with dependencies to the liquibase/lib directory (jdbc-socket-factory-core-<version>-jar-with-dependencies.jar and postgres-socket-factory-<version>-jar-with-dependencies.jar).

2

Configure your connection

1. Ensure your PostgreSQL database is configured. Check the status by running the pg_isready command. For more information about the options you can specify when running the command, see the pg_isready webpage.

2. Specify the database URL in the liquibase.properties file (defaults file), along with other properties you want to set a default value for. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard connection format:

jdbc:postgresql:///<DATABASE>?cloudSqlInstance=<CLOUD_INSTANCE_NAME>&socketFactory=com.google.cloud.sql.postgres.SocketFactory&user=<USERNAME>&password=<PASSWORD>

Note: You can specify your username and password in the JDBC URL or as Liquibase properties.

Alternatively, you can connect using your public IP in the Google Cloud Console > SQL > Connections > Networking:

jdbc:postgresql://<PUBLIC_IP>/<DATABASE>

Tip: To apply a Liquibase Pro key to your project, add the following property to the Liquibase properties file: licenseKey: <paste code here>

3

Test your connection

1. Create a text file called changelog (.sql, .yaml, .json, or .xml) in your project directory and add a changeset.

If you already created a changelog using the init project command, you can use that instead of creating a new file. When adding onto an existing changelog, be sure to only add the changeset and to not duplicate the changelog header.

--liquibase formatted sql
--changeset your.name:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (
  test_id INT NOT NULL,
  test_column INT,
  PRIMARY KEY (test_id) NOT ENFORCED
)

2. Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

Note: You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

4 changesets have not been applied to <your_connection_url> Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully.

3. Inspect the deployment SQL with the update-sql command

liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If the SQL that Liquibase generates isn't what you expect, you should review your changelog file and make any necessary adjustments.

4. Then execute these changes to your database with the update command:

liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

Liquibase: Update has been successful. Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.

5. From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the test_table object you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

Connect Liquibase with Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL - Liquibase