Configuring PgBouncer safely

Once PgBouncer is installed, we need to configure it to honor our ideal pool size calculations. The settings included with the supplied configuration file are for demonstration purposes only and are unlikely to match our requirements. This situation is easy to rectify, but it requires a bit of research on our part.

Getting ready

The PgBouncer settings are explained in detail in the example configuration file. However, we suggest making full use of the service documentation while following this recipe. We will endeavor to explain important parameters, but there's more available than we cover here.

When we installed PgBouncer, we ensured the configuration directory was writable by the postgres system user, which is the same user that owns the PostgreSQL service. For the sake of simplicity, we suggest using either this user or a root-capable user that can modify files on its behalf.

We also need the calculated pool size from the Determining connection costs and limits...