CockroachDB Feature Availability

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Some CockroachDB features are made available in phases prior to being launched in general availability (GA). This page defines the different levels of CockroachDB v22.1 feature availability and lists the features in each phase.

Feature availability phases

Features in limited access

Export logs from CockroachDB Dedicated clusters

CockroachDB Dedicated users can use the Cloud API to configure log export to AWS CloudWatch or GCP Cloud Logging. Once the export is configured, logs will flow from all nodes in all regions of your CockroachDB Dedicated cluster to your chosen cloud log sink. You can configure log export to redact sensitive log entries, limit log output by severity, and send log entries to specific log group targets by log channel, among others.

Features in preview

This page lists the features that are available in preview in CockroachDB v22.1. These features are subject to change. To share feedback and/or issues, contact Support.

cockroach commands

The table below lists the cockroach commands available in preview in CockroachDB.

SESSIONS channel

The SESSIONS channel logs SQL session events. This includes client connection and session authentication events, for which logging must be enabled separately. For complete logging of client connections, we recommend enabling both types of events.

Super regions

Super regions allow you to define a set of database regions such that schema objects will have all of their replicas stored only in regions that are members of the super region. The primary use case for super regions is data domiciling.

Functions and Operators

The table below lists the SQL functions and operators available in preview in CockroachDB. For more information, see each function's documentation at Functions and Operators.

Export metrics from CockroachDB Dedicated clusters

CockroachDB Dedicated users can use the Cloud API to configure metrics export to AWS CloudWatch or Datadog. Once the export is configured, metrics will flow from all nodes in all regions of your CockroachDB Dedicated cluster to your chosen cloud metrics sink.

Keep SQL audit logs

Log all queries against a table to a file, for security purposes. For more information, see ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT.

> ALTER TABLE t EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT SET READ WRITE;

Show table fingerprints

Table fingerprints are used to compute an identification string of an entire table, for the purpose of gauging whether two tables have the same data. This is useful, for example, when restoring a table from backup.

Example:

> SHOW EXPERIMENTAL_FINGERPRINTS FROM TABLE t;

 index_name |     fingerprint
------------+---------------------
 primary    | 1999042440040364641
(1 row)

Turn on KV event tracing

Use session tracing (via SHOW TRACE FOR SESSION) to report the replicas of all KV events that occur during its execution.

Example:

> SET tracing = on;
> SELECT * from t;
> SET tracing = off;
> SHOW EXPERIMENTAL_REPLICA TRACE FOR SESSION;

            timestamp             | node_id | store_id | replica_id
----------------------------------+---------+----------+------------
 2018-10-18 15:50:13.345879+00:00 |       3 |        3 |          7
 2018-10-18 15:50:20.628383+00:00 |       2 |        2 |         26

Check for constraint violations with SCRUB

Checks the consistency of UNIQUE indexes, CHECK constraints, and more. Partially implemented; see cockroachdb/cockroach#10425 for details.

>  EXPERIMENTAL SCRUB table movr.users;

 job_uuid |        error_type        | database | table |                       primary_key                        |         timestamp         | repaired |                                                                                                                                                                         details
----------+--------------------------+----------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('boston','0009eeb5-d779-4bf8-b1bd-8566533b105c')        | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'06484 Christine Villages\\nGrantport, TN 01572'", "city": "'boston'", "credit_card": "'4634253150884'", "id": "'0009eeb5-d779-4bf8-b1bd-8566533b105c'", "name": "'Jessica Webb'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('los angeles','0001252c-fc16-4006-b6dc-c6b1a0fd1f5b')   | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'91309 Warner Springs\\nLake Danielmouth, PR 33400'", "city": "'los angeles'", "credit_card": "'3584736360686445'", "id": "'0001252c-fc16-4006-b6dc-c6b1a0fd1f5b'", "name": "'Rebecca Gibson'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('new york','000169a5-e337-4441-b664-dae63e682980')      | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'0787 Christopher Highway Apt. 363\\nHamptonmouth, TX 91864-2620'", "city": "'new york'", "credit_card": "'4578562547256688'", "id": "'000169a5-e337-4441-b664-dae63e682980'", "name": "'Christopher Johnson'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('paris','00089fc4-e5b1-48f6-9f0b-409905f228c4')         | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'46735 Martin Summit\\nMichaelview, OH 10906-5889'", "city": "'paris'", "credit_card": "'5102207609888778'", "id": "'00089fc4-e5b1-48f6-9f0b-409905f228c4'", "name": "'Nicole Fuller'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('rome','000209fc-69a1-4dd5-8053-3b5e5769876d')          | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'473 Barrera Vista Apt. 890\\nYeseniaburgh, CO 78087'", "city": "'rome'", "credit_card": "'3534605564661093'", "id": "'000209fc-69a1-4dd5-8053-3b5e5769876d'", "name": "'Sheryl Shea'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('san francisco','00058767-1e83-4e18-999f-13b5a74d7225') | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'5664 Acevedo Drive Suite 829\\nHernandezview, MI 13516'", "city": "'san francisco'", "credit_card": "'376185496850202'", "id": "'00058767-1e83-4e18-999f-13b5a74d7225'", "name": "'Kevin Turner'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('seattle','0002e904-1256-4528-8b5f-abad16e695ff')       | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'81499 Samuel Crescent Suite 631\\nLake Christopherborough, PR 50401'", "city": "'seattle'", "credit_card": "'38743493725890'", "id": "'0002e904-1256-4528-8b5f-abad16e695ff'", "name": "'Mark Williams'"}}
          | index_key_decoding_error | movr     | users | ('washington dc','00007caf-2014-4696-85b0-840e7d8b6db9') | 2018-10-18 16:00:38.65916 | f        | {"error_message": "key ordering did not match datum ordering. IndexDescriptor=ASC", "index_name": "primary", "row_data": {"address": "e'4578 Holder Trafficway\\nReynoldsside, IL 23520-7418'", "city": "'washington dc'", "credit_card": "'30454993082943'", "id": "'00007caf-2014-4696-85b0-840e7d8b6db9'", "name": "'Marie Miller'"}}
(8 rows)

Show range information for a specific row

The SHOW RANGE ... FOR ROW statement shows information about a range for a particular row of data. This information is useful for verifying how SQL data maps to underlying ranges, and where the replicas for a range are located.

Alter column types

CockroachDB supports altering the column types of existing tables, with certain limitations. To enable altering column types, set the enable_experimental_alter_column_type_general session variable to true.

Temporary objects

Temporary tables, temporary views, and temporary sequences are in preview in CockroachDB. If you create too many temporary objects in a session, the performance of DDL operations will degrade. Performance limitations could persist long after creating the temporary objects. For more details, see cockroachdb/cockroach#46260.

To enable temporary objects, set the experimental_enable_temp_tables session variable to on.

Password authentication without TLS

For deployments where transport security is already handled at the infrastructure level (e.g., IPSec with DMZ), and TLS-based transport security is not possible or not desirable, CockroachDB supports delegating transport security to the infrastructure with the flag --accept-sql-without-tls for cockroach start.

With this flag, SQL clients can establish a session over TCP without a TLS handshake. They still need to present valid authentication credentials, for example a password in the default configuration. Different authentication schemes can be further configured as per server.host_based_authentication.configuration.

Example:

$ cockroach sql --user=jpointsman --insecure

  # Welcome to the CockroachDB SQL shell.
  # All statements must be terminated by a semicolon.
  # To exit, type: \q.
  #
  Enter password:

Core implementation of changefeeds

The EXPERIMENTAL CHANGEFEED FOR statement creates a new core changefeed, which streams row-level changes to the client indefinitely until the underlying connection is closed or the changefeed is canceled. A core changefeed can watch one table or multiple tables in a comma-separated list.

Changefeed metrics labels

To measure metrics per changefeed, you can define a "metrics label" for one or multiple changefeed(s). The changefeed(s) will increment each changefeed metric. Metrics label information is sent with time-series metrics to http://{host}:{http-port}/_status/vars, viewable via the Prometheus endpoint. An aggregated metric of all changefeeds is also measured.

It is necessary to consider the following when applying metrics labels to changefeeds:

• Metrics labels are not available in CockroachDB Cloud.
• The COCKROACH_EXPERIMENTAL_ENABLE_PER_CHANGEFEED_METRICS environment variable must be specified to use this feature.
• The server.child_metrics.enabled cluster setting must be set to true before using the metrics_label option.
• Metrics label information is sent to the _status/vars endpoint, but will not show up in debug.zip or the DB Console.
• Introducing labels to isolate a changefeed's metrics can increase cardinality significantly. There is a limit of 1024 unique labels in place to prevent cardinality explosion. That is, when labels are applied to high-cardinality data (data with a higher number of unique values), each changefeed with a label then results in more metrics data to multiply together, which will grow over time. This will have an impact on performance as the metric-series data per changefeed quickly populates against its label.
• The maximum length of a metrics label is 128 bytes.

For usage details, see the Monitor and Debug Changefeeds page.

Google Pub/Sub sink for changefeeds

Changefeeds can deliver messages to a Google Cloud Pub/Sub sink, which is integrated with Google Cloud Platform.

Webhook sink for changefeeds

Use a webhook sink to deliver changefeed messages to an arbitrary HTTP endpoint.

See Also

• SHOW {session variable}
• Functions and Operators
• ALTER TABLE ... EXPERIMENTAL_AUDIT
• SHOW TRACE FOR SESSION
• SHOW RANGE ... FOR ROW

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