Re: best practice to patch a postgresql version?

On Tue, 2022-12-27 at 00:48 -0600, Ron wrote:
> If it really is a critical production database, you will have a CAT/UAT (customer/user acceptance testing)
> server on which you rigorously run regression tests on a point release for a month before updating the production server.
>
> Otherwise, it's a hope-and-pray database.

No, that is wrong.

You should not test your application when you install a minor update. The reason is that
few people are willing to test the application thoroughly every few months, and the outcome
is that minor releases are *not* applied regularly, as they should be.

You are supposed to trust PostgreSQL development that they don't introduce new bugs.
Sure, this can happen, even though all possible care is taken with backpatches. I have
seen it happen once or twice in the 15+ years I have been dealing with PostgreSQL.
In that case, a new minor release will come out soon afterwards.

Concerning the risks that you have to consider here (running into a known bug that is
fixed in the latest minor release versus running into a bug introduced by the latest
minor release), the PostgreSQL page makes this statement:

> For minor releases, the community considers not upgrading to be riskier than upgrading.

Of course you will update your test databases first, to make sure that your update
procedure is working well.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe