adminpack

adminpack : administrative functions for PostgreSQL

Overview

Packages

Install

Create this extension with:

CREATE EXTENSION adminpack;

Usage

adminpack: administrative functions for PostgreSQL

The adminpack extension provides server-side file management and log access functions, primarily used by pgAdmin and other administration tools. All functions are restricted to superusers by default.

File Operations

-- Write text to a file (append=false: file must not exist; append=true: append)
SELECT pg_file_write('/tmp/test.txt', 'Hello World', false);   -- returns bytes written

-- Append to existing file
SELECT pg_file_write('/tmp/test.txt', E'\nMore data', true);

-- Sync file to disk
SELECT pg_file_sync('/tmp/test.txt');

-- Rename a file
SELECT pg_file_rename('/tmp/old.txt', '/tmp/new.txt');

-- Rename with archiving (moves existing newname to archive first)
SELECT pg_file_rename('/tmp/old.txt', '/tmp/new.txt', '/tmp/archive.txt');

-- Delete a file
SELECT pg_file_unlink('/tmp/test.txt');   -- returns true on success

Log File Access

-- List server log files (requires default log_filename format)
SELECT * FROM pg_logdir_ls();

Returns timestamps and paths of log files from the log_directory.

Function Reference

Access Control

• All functions default to superuser-only access
• Permissions can be granted via GRANT to non-superusers
• File access is restricted to the database cluster directory unless the user has pg_read_server_files or pg_write_server_files roles

Note: adminpack was removed in PostgreSQL 17. For PostgreSQL 16 and earlier only.