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Enable "log_checkpoints" Flag for PostgreSQL Database Server Configuration

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Risk Level: Medium (should be achieved)

Ensure that "log_checkpoints" database flag is enabled for all PostgreSQL database instances available within your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account. The "log_checkpoints" PostgreSQL flag allows checkpoints and restart points to be logged in the PostgreSQL server log. By default, the "log_checkpoints" flag is disabled.

Security

PostgreSQL database checkpoints are usually disrupting your database performance and can cause connections to stall for up to a few seconds while they occur. By enabling the "log_checkpoints" flag you can get verbose logging of the checkpoint process for your PostgreSQL database servers. The log messages include statistics such as the number of buffers written and the time spent writing them, therefore the logging data can be used to identify and troubleshoot sub-optimal PostgreSQL database performance.

Note: Some database flag settings can affect instance availability and/or stability, and eventually remove the PostgreSQL instance from the Google Cloud SQL Service Level Agreement (SLA).


Audit

To determine if the "log_checkpoints" flag is enabled for your PostgreSQL database instances, perform the following actions:

Using GCP Console

01 Sign in to Google Cloud Management Console.

02 Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project that you want to access from the console top navigation bar.

03 Navigate to Cloud SQL Instances dashboard at https://console.cloud.google.com/sql/instances.

04 Click inside the Filter tree box, select Type and PostgreSQL then press Enter, to list only the PostgreSQL database instances provisioned for the selected GCP project.

05 Click on the name (ID) of the database instance that you want to examine.

06 In the navigation panel, select Overview to access the configuration details available for the selected instance.

07 In the Configuration section, under Database flags, check the configuration value set for the log_checkpoints database flag. If log_checkpoints is not available in the Database flags list, or the flag is set to off, the "log_checkpoints" database flag is disabled for the selected Google Cloud PostgreSQL database instance, therefore the instance configuration is not compliant.

08 Repeat step no. 5 – 7 to check the "log_checkpoints" flag configuration for other PostgreSQL database instances available within the selected project.

09 Repeat steps no. 2 – 8 for each project deployed in your Google Cloud account.

Using GCP CLI

01 Run projects list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom query filters to list the IDs of all the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) projects available in your Google Cloud account:

gcloud projects list
	--format="table(projectId)"

02 The command output should return the requested GCP project identifiers:

PROJECT_ID
cc-mobile-project-123123
cc-bigdata-project-112233

03 Run sql instances list command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using custom filtering to describe the name of each PostgreSQL database instance provisioned for the selected Google Cloud project:

gcloud sql instances list
	--project cc-mobile-project-123123
	--filter='DATABASE_VERSION:POSTGRES*'
	--format="(NAME)"

04 The command output should return the requested database instance name(s):

NAME
cc-app-postgres-instance
cc-int-postgres-instance

05 Run sql instances describe command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the name of the PostgreSQL database instance that you want to examine as identifier parameter and custom query filters to describe the "log_checkpoints" flag configuration value set for the selected database instance:

gcloud sql instances describe cc-app-postgres-instance
	--format=json | jq '.settings.databaseFlags[] | select(.name=="log_checkpoints")|.value'

06 The command output should return the requested flag configuration value:

"off"

If the sql instances describe command output returns null or "off", the "log_checkpoints" database flag is currently disabled for the selected Google Cloud PostgreSQL database instance, therefore the database configuration is not compliant.

07 Repeat step no. 5 and 6 to verify the "log_checkpoints" flag configuration value for other PostgreSQL database instances created for the selected project.

08 Repeat steps no. 3 – 7 for each project available within your Google Cloud account.

Remediation / Resolution

To turn on the "log_checkpoints" database flag for your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) PostgreSQL database instances, perform the following operations:

Using GCP Console

01 Sign in to Google Cloud Management Console.

02 Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project that you want to access from the console top navigation bar.

03 Navigate to Cloud SQL Instances dashboard at https://console.cloud.google.com/sql/instances.

04 Click inside the Filter tree box, select Type and PostgreSQL then press Enter, to display only the PostgreSQL database instances available for the selected project.

05 Click on the name/ID of the database instance that you want to reconfigure.

06 In the navigation panel, select Overview to access the configuration details of the selected instance.

07 Click on the Edit button from the dashboard top menu to enter the instance edit mode.

08 In the Configuration options section, click on Flags to expand the panel with the database flags configured for the selected PostgreSQL instance.

09 Find the log_checkpoints flag and turn it on by selecting On from the flag configuration dropdown list. If the specified flag has not been set on the selected instance before, click Add item, choose the log_checkpoints flag from the Choose one dropdown menu, and set its value to On. Click Close to close the panel.

10 Click Save to apply the configuration changes.

11 Repeat step no. 5 – 10 to configure the required flag for other PostgreSQL database instances available within the selected project.

12 Repeat steps no. 2 – 11 for each project deployed in your Google Cloud account.

Using GCP CLI

01 Run sql instances patch command (Windows/macOS/Linux) using the name of the PostgreSQL database instance that you want to reconfigure as identifier parameters (see Audit section part II to identify the right resource), to enable the "log_checkpoints" database flag for the selected instance, by setting the flag value to on:

gcloud sql instances patch cc-app-postgres-instance
	--database-flags log_checkpoints=on

02 Type Y to confirm the database configuration change:

The following message will be used for the patch API method.
{"name": "cc-app-postgres-instance", "project": "cc-mobile-project-123123", "settings": {"databaseFlags": [{"name": "log_checkpoints", "value": "on"}]}}
WARNING: This patch modifies database flag values, which may require your instance to be restarted. Check the list of supported flags - https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/postgres/flags - to see if your instance will be restarted when this patch is submitted.
Do you want to continue (Y/n)? Y

03 The output should return the sql instances patch command request status:

Patching Cloud SQL instance...done.
Updated [https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/cc-mobile-project-123123/instances/cc-app-postgres-instance].

04 Repeat step no. 1 – 3 to configure the specified flag for other PostgreSQL database instances provisioned for the selected project.

05 Repeat steps no. 1 – 4 for each project created within your Google Cloud account.

References

Publication date Apr 21, 2021