Pgpool-II 4.2 beta1 is now released.

Pgpool Global Development Group is pleased to announce the availability of Pgpool-II 4.2 beta1.
This is not intended to be used in production but is close to the release version. So users are encouraged to test it out.

Pgpool-II is a tool to add useful features to PostgreSQL, including:

- connection pooling
- load balancing
- automatic fail over and more.

For more information, please see the [website](https://pgpool.net/).

V4.2 contains new features and enhancements, including:

- Some items in the configuration file pgpool.conf are vastly enhanced for
easier configuration and administration.
- Implement logging\_collector for easier log management.
- Implement log\_disconnections to collect disconnection logs.
- Implement pg\_enc and pg\_md5 to allow to register multiple passwords at once.
- Allow to show statistics of health check by using SHOW POOL\_HEALTH\_CHECK\_STATS command, and also allow to show statistics of issued SQL by using SHOW POOL\_BACKEND\_STATS command.
- New PCP command pcp\_reload\_config is added.
- Now it is possible to omit write\_function\_list and read\_only\_function\_list by looking at system catalog information.
- Add new clustering mode snapshot\_isolation\_mode which guarantees not only data modifications to multiple PostgreSQL but read consistency.
- Support LDAP authentication between clients and Pgpool-II.
- Add ssl\_crl\_file and ssl\_passphrase\_command to SSL configuration.
- Import PostgreSQL 13's SQL parser.

You can download it from [here](https://pgpool.net/mediawiki/index.php/Developer_releases)

Please take a look at [release notes](https://www.pgpool.net/docs/42/en/html/release-4-2-0.html)