AidboxDB

This topic explains the configuration and internals of aidboxdb image

Introduction

AidboxDB image is a custom build of open source PostgreSQL database. Aidbox uses it as data storage. The image can be pulled from HealthSamurai dockerhub.

docker run \
       -v "$(pwd)"/pgdata:/data/pg \
       -e POSTGRES_USER='postgres' \
       -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD='pass' \
       -e POSTGRES_DB='aidbox' \
       -e PGDATA="/data/pg" \
       healthsamurai/aidboxdb:16.1

The AidboxDB image use cases are:

• To initialize and run a master database for Aidbox to work with

• To initialize and run a streaming replica

• Optimized FHIR search queries

• Backup and maintenance extensions

Versioning

AidboxDB image is tagged by PostgreSQL version from which it is built. For example, if you want to use 14.5 PostgreSQL version you should pull healthsamurai/aidboxdb:14.5 image.

Supported PostgreSQL versions: 17.2, 16.6, 15.10.

See available versions on Docker Hub.

Available PostgreSQL extensions

List of available extensions:

• plpgsql — Some PostgreSQL functions are written in plpgsql language.
• pg_stat_statements — Track statistics.
• postgis — Support storing, indexing, and querying geographic data. Used by Location.near search parameter only.
• fuzzystrmatch — String similarities functions. Used by MDM module only.
• pg_trgm — Support for similarity of text using trigram matching. Useful for some indexes.
• unaccent — A text search dictionary that removes diacritics. Used in some searches.
• pg_repack — Reorganize tables in PostgreSQL databases with minimal locks.
• wal2json — An output plugin for logical decoding.
• wal-g — Archival and Restoration for databases in the Cloud.
• pgcrypto

Extensions unavailable since AidboxDB version 16:

• jsonknife — Jsonb extraction tool for optimizing FHIR search

See also PostgreSQL extensions.

Configuration

The image is configured by supplying environment variables and command line arguments on startup. Keep in mind that you should not change the environment variables once you have initialized the database. The image expects them to be immutable.

AidboxDB environment variables

Archiving

An open-source tool wal-g is used by AidboxDB for continuous archival, backups, and restoration. See also WAL-G.