That’s the first sign your onboarding process for Postgres binary protocol proxying is working right. No stutters. No client disconnects. No handshakes failing midstream. Just clean, uninterrupted connections passing through your proxy, as if it wasn’t even there—except it is. And it’s doing heavy lifting.
Postgres binary protocol proxying is not just about forwarding packets. It’s about mastering the handshake, startup messages, authentication flows, and query pipelines at the protocol level. This is the gate where most onboarding fails—not because the logic is complex, but because the sequence must be exact. A single misread message type and the whole stream collapses.
The right onboarding process starts before the first byte is forwarded.
Map out the protocol stages:
- Initial TCP connection
- SSL negotiation
- Authentication exchange
- Parameter status messages
- ReadyForQuery initiation
Each stage must be mirrored and maintained by the proxy with strict adherence to the Postgres spec. That includes preserving timing, ordering, and special cases for extended query protocol flows. Skipping this depth leads to subtle bugs that surface only under load.
Session tracking is critical. Your proxy should maintain metadata for every connection: authentication state, transaction status, prepared statements in use, and any custom parameters negotiated. This keeps the illusion alive for the database and the client that they are talking directly, while your proxy can intercept, route, or modify traffic when needed.