Using Liquibase with CockroachDB

CockroachDB is a distributed database with standard SQL for cloud applications. You can run CockroachDB on your local machine or use a cloud cluster.

Note: For more information, see the CockroachDB documentation page.

Supported Versions

  • 20.1
  • 20.2
  • 21.1

Note: The supported versions are the versions that were tested with Liquibase Test Harness.

Prerequisites

Before using Liquibase and CockroachDB, ensure you have completed the following:

Driver Information

To use Liquibase and CockroachDB, you need to have the JDBC jar file:

  1. Ensure you have downloaded the PostgreSQL JDBC jar driver file to connect to CockroachDB.
  2. Place your postgresql-version.jar file in the liquibase/lib directory.

Note: If you put the postgresql-version.jar file in any other directory, specify the path to it in the liquibase.properties file: classpath:../path_to_drivers/postgresql-version.jar. For more information, see Creating and configuring a liquibase.properties file.

If you use Maven, you also need to download the PostgreSQL JDBC driver and put the driver in a location that your Maven build can access. Configure the Maven pom.xml file to use the local copy of the driver jar file. For example:

<dependency>
<groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
<artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
<version>42.2.8</version>

Testing Your Connection

For Liquibase and CockroachDB to work, you need to:

  1. Ensure your CockroachDB is configured. You can check its status depending on your cluster setup. For example, you can check basic network connectivity (ping), port connectivity (telnet), and certificate validity. See the Troubleshoot Cluster Setup for more details.
  2. Generate or check TLS certificates for the user that you created during a secure CockroachDB cluster setup. Use the cockroach cert command to generate the certificates:
    3. cockroach cert create-client user --certs-dir=certs --ca-key=my-safe-directory/ca.key --also-generate-pkcs8-key
  1. Specify the database URL in your liquibase.properties file:

    2. CockroachDB on-premises

    url:jdbc:postgresql://localhost:26257/database?ssl=true&sslmode=require&sslrootcert=/full-path/certs/ca.crt&sslkey=/full-ath/certs/client.user.key.pk8&sslcert=/full-path/certs/client.user.crt

    When using the CockroachDB on-premises and specifying the URL, enter your IP address or host name, and then the port followed by the database name. The example of the format is: jdbc:postgresql://<IP OR HOSTNAME>:<PORT>/<DATABASE>.

    The SSL connection parameters to the full paths of the certificates that you generated are optional. A key in PKCS#8 format is the standard key encoding format in Java. As an alternative, you can use the URL without SSL connection parameters by specifying the username and password attributes:

    url: jdbc:postgresql://localhost:26257/dev
username: root
password: password

    CockroachDB cloud

    url: jdbc:postgresql://liquibase-3r8.aws-us-east-2.cockroachlabs.cloud:26257/defaultdb?sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=liquibase-ca.crt

    When using the CockroachCloud instance and specifying URL, enter a global host name and the port 26257 by referring to the CockroachCloud website. Also, add the database name with the SSL mode and the path to the CA certificate to your URL.

    Tip: If you already have a Liquibase Pro key and want to apply it to your project, add the following property to your liquibase.properties file: liquibaseProLicenseKey: <paste license key>.

  2. Create a text file called changelog (.xml, .sql, .json, or .yaml) in your project directory and add a changeset.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<databaseChangeLog
         xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
         http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-4.1.xsd">
         <changeSet id="1" author="Liquibase">
         <createTable tableName="test_table">
               <column name="test_id" type="int">
               <constraints primaryKey="true"/>
               </column>
               <column name="test_column" type="varchar"/>
        </createTable>
      </changeSet>
</databaseChangeLog>
--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset liquibase:1
--Database: cockroachdb
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT, test_column VARCHAR, PRIMARY KEY (test_id))
databaseChangeLog:
- changeSet:
	id: 1
	author: Liquibase
	changes:
	- createTable:
		columns:
		- column:
			name: test_column
			type: INT
			constraints:  
				   primaryKey:  true  
				   nullable:  false  
				   tableName: test_table
{ 
  "databaseChangeLog": [
  {
	"changeSet": {
	  "id": "1",
      "author": "Liquibase",
	  "changes": [
	    {
		  "createTable": {
		    "columns": [
			{
			  "column": 
		      {
				"name": "test_column",
				"type": "INT",
				"constraints": 
			  {
				"primaryKey": true,
				"nullable": false
				}
				}
			  }]
			,
			"tableName": "test_table"
		  }
		}]
	  }
	}]
  }

Note: CockroachDB has limited support for online schema changes in transactions. To avoid issues with incomplete transactions, you can set the runInTransaction attribute to false. However, take into account that if this attribute is set to false and an error occurs part way through running a changeset that contains multiple statements, the Liquibase DATABASECHANGELOG table will be left in an invalid state.

  1. Run the status command to see whether the connection is successful. Specify the name of the changelog you created in place of changelog.xml. Also, to run Liquibase commands, you need to specify your username and password in the liquibase.properties file or on the command line. However, the username and password attributes are not required for connections and systems which use alternate means of authentication.
    2. liquibase --username=test --password=test --changeLogFile=changelog.xml status

    Note: Alternatively, you can add the changeLogFile attribute to your liquibase.properties file.

  1. Run your first update with the Liquibase update command, which will make changes to your database. You can also run the updateSQL command if you want to inspect the SQL before running the update command.
    2. liquibase --changeLogFile=changelog.xml updateSQL
liquibase --changeLogFile=changelog.xml update

After your first update, you will see a new table along with the DATABASECHANGELOG and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK tables added to the database:

  • DATABASECHANGELOG table. This table keeps a record of all the changesets that were deployed. When you deploy, the changesets in the changelog are compared with the DATABASECHANGELOG tracking table, and only the new changesets that were not found in the DATABASECHANGELOG will be deployed.
  • DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table. This table is used internally by Liquibase to manage access to the DATABASECHANGELOG table during deployment and ensure only one instance of Liquibase is updating the database at a time, whether that is creating, updating or deleting changes.

Supported Commands and Change Types

Change Type Supported Command Supported
addAutoIncrement Supported calculateCheckSum <id> Supported
addCheckConstraint Supported changelogSync Supported
addColumn Supported changelogSyncSQL Supported
addDefaultValue Supported changelogSyncToTag Supported
addForeignKeyConstraint Supported changelogSyncToTagSQL Supported
addLookupTable Supported clearCheckSums Supported
addNotNullConstraint Supported dbDoc Supported
addPrimaryKey Supported deactivateChangeLog Supported
addUniqueConstraint Supported diff Supported
alterSequence Supported diff JSON Supported
createFunction Supported diffChangeLog Supported
createIndex Supported dropAll Supported
createPackage Supported futureRollbackCountSQL <value> Supported
createPackageBody Supported future-rollback-from-tag-sql <tag> Supported
createProcedure Supported futureRollbackSQL Supported
createSequence Supported generateChangeLog Supported
createSynonym Supported help Supported
createTable Supported history Supported
createTrigger Supported listLocks Supported
createView Supported markNextChangeSetRan Supported
customChange Supported markNextChangeSetRanSQL Supported
delete Supported registerChangeLog Supported
disableCheckConstraint Supported releaseLocks Supported
disableTrigger Supported rollback <tag> Supported
dropAllForeignKeyConstraints Supported rollbackCount <value> Supported
dropCheckConstraint Supported rollbackCountSQL <value> Supported
dropColumn Supported rollbackOneChangeSet Supported
dropDefaultValue Supported rollbackOneChangeSetSQL Supported
dropForeignKeyConstraint Supported rollbackOneUpdate Supported
dropFunction Supported rollbackOneUpdateSQL Supported
dropIndex Supported rollbackSQL <tag> Supported
dropNotNullConstraint Supported rollbackToDate Supported
dropPackage Supported rollbackToDateSQL Supported
dropPackageBody Supported snapshot Supported
dropPrimaryKey Supported snapshotReference Supported
dropProcedure Supported status --verbose Supported
dropSequence Supported syncHub Supported
dropSynonym Supported tag <tag string> Supported
dropTable Supported tagExists <tag string> Supported
dropTrigger Supported unexpectedChangeSets Supported
dropUniqueConstraint Supported update Supported
dropView Supported updateSQL Supported
empty Supported updateCount <value> Supported
enableCheckConstraint Supported updateCountSQL <value> Supported
enableTrigger Supported updateTestingRollback Supported
executeCommand Supported updateToTag <tag> Supported
insert Supported updateToTagSQL <tag> Supported
loadData Supported validate Supported
loadUpdateData Supported    
markUnused Supported    
mergeColumns Supported    
modifyDataType Supported    
output Supported    
renameColumn Supported    
renameSequence Supported    
renameTable Supported    
renameTrigger Supported    
renameView Supported    
setColumnRemarks Supported    
setTableRemarks Supported    
sql Supported    
sqlFile Supported    
stop Supported    
tagDatabase Supported    
update Supported    

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