Pgpool-II 4.4.2, 4.3.5, 4.2.12, 4.1.15 and 4.0.22 released.

Posted on 2023-01-23 by Pgpool Global Development Group
Related Open Source Security

What is Pgpool-II?

Pgpool-II is a tool to add useful features to PostgreSQL, including:

  • connection pooling
  • load balancing
  • automatic failover and more.

Minor releases

Pgpool Global Development Group is pleased to announce the availability of following versions of Pgpool-II:

  • 4.4.2
  • 4.3.5
  • 4.2.12
  • 4.1.15
  • 4.0.22

This release contains a security fix.

If following conditions are all met, the password of "wd_lifecheck_user" is exposed by "SHOW POOL STATUS" command. The command can be executed by any user who can connect to Pgpool-II. (CVE-2023-22332)

  • Version 3.3 or later
  • use_watchdog = on
  • wd_lifecheck_method = 'query'
  • A plain text password is set to wd_lifecheck_password

In this case it is strongly recommended to upgrade to this version (we do not expose wd_lifecheck_password in show pool_status command any more), or use one of following workarounds.

Workarounds for 4.0.x to 4.4.x users:

  • Disable watchdog. Set use_watchdog to off.
  • Change wd_lifecheck_method to heartbeat.
  • Set an empty string to wd_lifecheck_password. This will use password in the pool_passwd file.
  • Set an AES encrypted password to wd_lifecheck_password.

In any case we recommend to change "wd_lifecheck_password" in PostgreSQL.

Workarounds for 3.0.x to 3.7.x users:

  • Disable watchdog. Set use_watchdog to off.
  • Change wd_lifecheck_method to heartbeat.

In any case we recommend to change "wd_lifecheck_password" in PostgreSQL.

Please note that Pgpool-II 3.7.x or before are end of life and no minor updates are provided for those versions.

Please take a look at release notes.

You can download the source code and RPMs.