Openshift Postgres Binary Protocol Proxying: Gotchas and Best Practices

Openshift Postgres binary protocol proxying is one of those problems you only notice when things break. Kubernetes-native networking can be deceptive. On paper, a Service can forward Postgres traffic flawlessly. In practice, the binary protocol—more complex than simple HTTP—can stumble on idle timeouts, connection reuse, TLS offload, or unexpected packet buffering.

Postgres uses a stateful binary protocol with startup messages, authentication negotiation, and continuous streaming of query responses. Any proxy in the path must preserve packet boundaries and session state. This is not optional. TCP-level load balancers often work, but when they are layered through Openshift Routers, HAProxy configs, or Istio sidecars, subtle misconfigurations create hung queries and dropped connections.

Common failure points include:

• Streaming large result sets through a proxy with small buffer sizes.
• Idle connection termination after Openshift Route timeouts.
• SSL passthrough failing due to layer-7 inspection.
• Misaligned keepalive settings between Postgres and the proxy.

To handle Postgres binary protocol proxying correctly on Openshift:

1. Use passthrough routes or direct ClusterIP access for performance-sensitive services.
2. Match TCP keepalive and timeout values with database configuration.
3. Avoid protocol translation; stay at layer 4 when possible.
4. Benchmark with pgbench to test sustained loads across the actual path.
5. Monitor with packet captures to validate frame integrity from client to server.

The binary protocol rewards precision. Small mistakes in proxy settings become production outages. Treat every hop between the client and the database as a potential point of failure. Keep configurations minimal and transparent. Verify at the wire-level before shipping.

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