Request to Add New Package: pgsentinel

Dear PostgreSQL Package Debian Team,

My name is Laura Huang, and I am writing to request consideration for adding a new package for the existing PostgreSQL extension, pgsentinel, within the PostgreSQL community. This package was developed under the mentorship and guidance of Jeremy Schneider (cc’d), who has been involved throughout the process.

pgsentinel is used for sampling and recording active session history in PostgreSQL databases. It enables users to monitor session activities, linking it with query statistics from pg_stat_statements, and provides deeper visibility into workload patterns, blocking events, and query performance.

To facilitate easier installation and broader usability, we have created a package for pgsentinel that supports multiple PostgreSQL versions (14 and above). By offering pgsentinel as a package, users benefit from easier upgrades, simplified integration with system package managers, and improved maintainability compared to manual installation methods.

For the recently released PostgreSQL 18-beta, we have manually tested pgsentinel with PostgreSQL 18-beta and confirmed that it works as expected, collecting data and functioning properly.

The packaging code is publicly available at: https://salsa.debian.org/laurah159/pgsentinel/.

To support packaging, we made the following changes to the upstream pgsentinel code:

1. Added a top-Level Makefile

The upstream repo places its Makefile in the src/ directory. However, during debuild, the build process expects a Makefile at the root. To resolve this, we added a top-level Makefile in the root directory that points to src/Makefile.

(Alternatively, we considered adding the '--sourcedirectory=src' suffix to all overrides in the debian/rules file, but opted for the top-level Makefile approach. If there is a preferred or better method, please let us know.)

2. Updated Makefile for Testing

In the original Makefile, the line 'REGRESS_OPTS = --temp-config=./pgsentinel.conf --temp-instance=./tmp_check' causes a conflict, since debuild already creates a temporary cluster for regression checks during installcheck, specifying '--temp-instance=./tmp_check' leads to errors. We adjusted this to avoid the conflict.

Forked repo with changes: https://github.com/laurahuang106/pgsentinel

We plan to open a PR against the upstream pgsentinel repository tomorrow or Wednesday. If you have any guidance or suggestions, we would greatly appreciate your feedback!

By the way, in the debian/control.in file, is it possible to add two uploaders? Jeremy will probably be the ongoing maintainer, and I would like to include him as an uploader.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Looking forward to your response!

Best regards,

Laura