[Bug] Documentation for Postgres is incomplete

[mmomjian]

Bug Description

Hello,

I understand if this may be a discussion topic instead, in which case feel free to convert it. However I would like to file a bug report that the documentation is incomplete for a Postgres setup. Specifically, there is no indication as to how to connect the GrampsWeb Web API container to a postgres database - the only variables given are POSTGRES_USER and POSTGRES_USER - no host, port, or DB name.

On the Server Config page, there are some more details such as HOST and PORT (specified to only be usable for a multiple tree/sharedPostgres setup), but still no way to specify the target database name.

Is there a supported/recommended way to connect the GrampsWeb API to an existing postgres database for the storage of a family tree, similar to the URI format given for USER_DB and SEARCH_INDEX URI? Thanks!

Gramps Web Version Information

Gramps 6.0.4
Gramps Web API 3.3.0
Gramps Web Frontend 25.9.0
Gramps QL 0.4.0
Sifts 1.0.0
locale: en
multi-tree: false
task queue: true
OCR: true
chat: false

Verification

• I have searched for existing issues before creating this one

[DavidMStraub]

I understand if this may be a discussion topic instead, in which case feel free to convert it.

It's a doc issue, so I shifted it to doc issues.

Thanks for reporting, you are right - there are various threads in the forum about it. Help is very much wanted - I personally don't use the "standard" Gramps Postgres addon because I find it painful, I only use SharedPostgreSQL, and the procedure is quite different in both cases.

So, whoever has a working instance (of either of the two flavours), please do the community a favour and submit a doc PR. 🙏

[mmomjian]

I will do some digging.

For the SharedPostgres, I felt that wasn't exactly as clear as well. I understand the HOST and PORT, but there is no database name. Does gramps make one database for each tree with the same name as the tree? I could try that.

[DavidMStraub]

Honestly I would have to dig as well 🫠 Thanks 🙏

[mmomjian]

So far I have tried this:

    GRAMPSWEB_TREE: 'postgres' #
    GRAMPSWEB_NEW_DB_BACKEND: 'postgresql'
    GRAMPSWEB_POSTGRES_USER: '${grampspguser}'
    GRAMPSWEB_POSTGRES_PASSWORD: '${grampspgpw}'
    GRAMPSWEB_POSTGRES_HOST: ${pghost}
    GRAMPSWEB_POSTGRES_PORT: ${pgport}

I will keep researching. It continues to store in a sqlite file with this config

[DavidMStraub]

You actually cannot create a PostgreSQL tree automatically just by Gramps Web configuration. The reason is that the Gramps PostgreSQL plugin was developed long before Gramps Web existed and was always meant to work with a manually created database, see https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Addon:PostgreSQL. So if you want to use the PostgreSQL addon, you'll have to create that database manually and use Gramps CLI (not Gramps Web!) to provision your tree.

GRAMPSWEB_NEW_DB_BACKEND is only used for the multi-tree setup, and it's only used when you create a new tree by a POST request to /trees/. Plus, I would not recommend (and actually don't even know if it can be made to work) to use the PostgreSQL addon for that. The SharedPostgreSQL (sharedpostgresql) addon was developed exactly for this use case.

[DavidMStraub]

(Related: #33)