Re: Postgres database and firewall

Thank you very much Shane for your response. I have one more question,
the firewall usually drops the idle connections. What can we configure
on the database side to keep the idle connections alive. In the
postgresql.conf file I see the parameter tcp_keepalives_idle, setting
this parameter would be enough to keep the idle connections alive or is
there anything else I need to be aware of. Your help will be highly
appreciated.

Thanks
Paramjeet Kaur

-----Original Message-----
From: Shane Ambler [mailto:pgsql(at)Sheeky(dot)Biz]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:48 AM
To: Bhella Paramjeet-PFCW67
Cc: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Postgres database and firewall

Bhella Paramjeet-PFCW67 wrote:
> Hi
>
>
> We will be setting up a production postgres database to which an
> application will connect through a firewall. Can any one please tell
> me if there is any configuration that needs to be done on the postgres

> database side for firewall. Is there any documentation that I can
> refer to. Any help will be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
> Paramjeet Bhella
>
>

If you are using NAT then you need port forwarding setup on the
firewall. If not then you need to make sure it allows the pg traffic
through.
Your firewall docs will show how to setup that. Default port for pg is
5432

As far as pg config goes the client ip addresses need to be allowed to
connect. This is setup in pg_hba.conf

see chapter 21
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/interactive/client-authentication.htm
l

For connections over the internet you should configure postgresql with
SSL support and use something like -

hostssl mydb +usergroup 192.168.1.0/24 md5

The problems arise if you want to allow roaming users that can have
varying ip addresses - try to find a solution that doesn't allow any
computer on the net to connect.

Will you (or can you) have VPN access to the internal network?

--

Shane Ambler
pgSQL (at) Sheeky (dot) Biz

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