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

Driver Information

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

Ensure you downloaded the PostgreSQL JDBC jar driver file to connect to CockroachDB.
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:

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.
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:

cockroach cert create-client user --certs-dir=certs --ca-key=my-safe-directory/ca.key --also-generate-pkcs8-key

Specify the database URL in your liquibase.properties file:

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>.

Create a text file called changelog (.xml, .sql, .json, or .yaml), add a changeset, and run your first update with the Liquibase update command, which will make changes to the database.

XML example

<?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>

SQL example

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset liquibase:1
--Database: cockroachdb
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT, test_column VARCHAR, PRIMARY KEY (test_id))

YAML example

databaseChangeLog:
- changeSet:
	id: 1
	author: Liquibase
	changes:
	- createTable:
		columns:
		- column:
			name: test_column
			type: INT
			constraints:  
				   primaryKey:  true  
				   nullable:  false  
				   tableName: test_table

JSON example

{ 
  "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.

Run liquibase --changeLogFile=mychangelog.xml status to see whether the connection is successful.

Note: Enter the name of the changelog you want to use in place of changelog.xml. You can also add the changeLogFile attribute to your liquibase.properties file.

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

DATABASECHANGELOG tracking 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 tracking 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	`futureRollbackSQL`	Supported
`createPackageBody`	Supported	`futureRollbackCountSQL <value>`	Supported
`createProcedure`	Supported	`generateChangeLog`	Supported
`createSequence`	Supported	`help`	Supported
`createSynonym`	Supported	`history`	Supported
`createTable`	Supported	`listLocks`	Supported
`createTrigger`	Supported	`markNextChangeSetRan`	Supported
`createView`	Supported	`markNextChangeSetRanSQL`	Supported
`customChange`	Supported	`registerChangeLog`	Supported
`delete`	Supported	`releaseLocks`	Supported
`disableCheckConstraint`	Supported	`rollback <tag>`	Supported
`disableTrigger`	Supported	`rollbackCount <value>`	Supported
`dropAllForeignKeyConstraints`	Supported	`rollbackCountSQL <value>`	Supported
`dropCheckConstraint`	Supported	`rollbackOneChangeSet`	Supported
`dropColumn`	Supported	`rollbackOneChangeSetSQL`	Supported
`dropDefaultValue`	Supported	`rollbackOneUpdate`	Supported
`dropForeignKeyConstraint`	Supported	`rollbackOneUpdateSQL`	Supported
`dropFunction`	Supported	`rollbackSQL <tag>`	Supported
`dropIndex`	Supported	`rollbackToDate`	Supported
`dropNotNullConstraint`	Supported	`rollbackToDateSQL`	Supported
`dropPackage`	Supported	`snapshot`	Supported
`dropPackageBody`	Supported	`snapshotReference`	Supported
`dropPrimaryKey`	Supported	`status --verbose`	Supported
`dropProcedure`	Supported	`syncHub`	Supported
`dropSequence`	Supported	`tag <tag string>`	Supported
`dropSynonym`	Supported	`tagExists <tag string>`	Supported
`dropTable`	Supported	`unexpectedChangeSets`	Supported
`dropTrigger`	Supported	`update`	Supported
`dropUniqueConstraint`	Supported	`updateSQL`	Supported
`dropView`	Supported	`updateCount <value>`	Supported
`empty`	Supported	`updateCountSQL <value>`	Supported
`enableCheckConstraint`	Supported	`updateTestingRollback`	Supported
`enableTrigger`	Supported	`updateToTag <tag>`	Supported
`executeCommand`	Supported	`updateToTagSQL <tag>`	Supported
`insert`	Supported	`validate`	Supported
`loadData`	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

Using Liquibase with CockroachDB

Supported Versions

Driver Information

Testing Your Connection

CockroachDB on-premises

CockroachDB cloud

Supported Commands and Change Types

Related Links