What does end of support of PostgreSQL 11 excactly means

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1

I saw on the GitLab admin screan a message that in the version that is released in november gitLab no longer supports PostgreSQl 11.
What does that exactly mean?
Can’t you upgrade anymore if you are still on PostgreSQL 11?

2

Hello Patrick,
We accidentally released incorrect information in that message. PostgreSQL 12 will become the default version in GitLab 13.6 (November) but you can opt out and stay on PostgreSQL 11. We will continue to support PostgreSQL 11 until the next major release of GitLab, which will be the 14.0 release next year. I’m sorry for the confusion. We removed the message in a patch release. You can find more information about the PostgreSQL roadmap and provide feedback in https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2184.
Larissa Lane
Product Manager, Distribution

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Because of this message we are now on PostgreSQL 12, is it possible to go back to PostgreSQL 11?

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I am asking the team about options for reverting. To help me understand your situation better, what is your reason for wanting to revert back to PostgreSQL 11? Have their been changes in your database since you upgraded to PostgreSQL 12?

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We want to move the database to another server.
We prefer a ready installed and managed PostgreSQL server for that. (Database server as a service)
In our Organisation the newest version they offer for that is PostgreSQL 11.

There have been changes in the database, the upgrade was weeks ago.

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Apologies for the delay.

The suggestions I got from our Engineering team are:

  1. Before doing anything, make a backup of the PostgreSQL 12 database in case you need to revert any changes you make

  2. You may be able to restore the db dump. You would use the PostgreSQL 12 pg_restore against the PostgreSQL 11 database. This approach has not been tested or documented.

  3. Alternatively, you may be able to use the pg_upgrade command backwards. This is also an approach that we have not tested.

If you are in our paid Support plan you may want to create a support ticket and get guidance. Please note that we haven’t tested any of these approaches and do not know the consequences. If you do move forward with either of these suggestions we recommend you do so in a test environment first to ensure there is no data loss or other unintended consequences.

For our reference, do you know when the managed PostgreSQL server will be updated to PostgreSQL 12? And whether there is a plan for PostgreSQL 13?