Tanzu Greenplum Platform Extension Framework 6.x Release Notes

The Tanzu Greenplum Platform Extension Framework (PXF) is included in the Tanzu Greenplum Database distribution in Greenplum version 6.x and in version 5.28 and older. PXF for Redhat/CentOS and Oracle Enterprise Linux is updated and distributed independently of Greenplum Database starting with PXF version 5.13.0. PXF version 5.16.0 is the first independent release that includes an Ubuntu distribution. You may need to download and install the PXF package to obtain the most recent version of this component.

Supported Platforms

The independent PXF 6.x distribution is compatible with these operating system platform and Greenplum Database versions:

PXF is compatible with these Java and Hadoop component versions:

Upgrading to PXF 6.1.0

Release 6.1.0

Release Date: June 24, 2021

New and Changed Features

PXF 6.1.0 includes these new and changed features:

• PXF now natively supports reading and writing Avro arrays.
• PXF adds support for reading JSON objects, such as embedded arrays, as text. The data returned by PXF is a valid JSON string that you can manipulate with the existing Greenplum Database JSON functions and operators.
• PXF improves its error reporting by displaying the exception class when there is no error message available.
• PXF introduces a new property that you can use to configure the connection timeout for data upload/write operations to an external datastore. This property is named pxf.connection.upload-timeout, and is located in the pxf-application.properties file.
• PXF now uses the pxf.connection.timeout configuration property to set the connection timeout only for read operations. If you previously set this property to specify the write timeout, you should now use pxf.connection.upload-timeout instead.
• PXF bundles a newer gp-common-go-libs supporting library along with its dependencies.

Resolved Issues

PXF 6.1.0 resolves these issues:

Release 6.0.1

Release Date: May 11, 2021

Resolved Issues

PXF 6.0.1 resolves these issues:

Release 6.0.0

Release Date: March 29, 2021

New and Changed Features

PXF 6.0.0 includes these new and changed features:

Architecture and Bundled Libraries

• PXF 6.0.0 is built on the Spring Boot framework:

  • PXF distributes a single JAR file that includes all of its dependencies.
  • PXF no longer installs and uses a standalone Tomcat server; it uses the Tomcat version 9.0.43 embedded in the PXF Spring Boot application.

• PXF bundles the postgresql-42.2.14.jar PostgreSQL driver JAR file.

• PXF library dependencies have changed with new, updated, and removed libraries.

• The PXF API has changed. If you are upgrading from PXF 5.x, you must update the PXF extension in each database in which it is registered as described in Upgrading from PXF 5.

• PXF 6 moves fragment allocation from its C extension to the PXF Service running on each segment host.

• The PXF Service now also runs on the Greenplum Database master and standby master hosts. If you used PXF 5.x to access Kerberos-secured HDFS, you must now generate principals and keytabs for the master and standby master as described in Upgrading from PXF 5.

Files, Configuration, and Commands

• PXF 6 uses the $PXF_BASE environment variable to identify its runtime configuration directory; it no longer uses $PXF_CONF for this purpose.
• By default, PXF installs its executables and runtime configuration into the same directory, $PXF_HOME, and PXF_BASE=$PXF_HOME. See About the PXF Installation and Configuration Directories for the new installation file layout.
• You can relocate the $PXF_BASE runtime configuration directory to a different directory after you install PXF by running the new pxf [cluster] prepare command as described in Relocating $PXF_BASE.
• PXF template server configuration files now reside in $PXF_HOME/templates; they were previously located in the $PXF_CONF/templates directory.
• The pxf [cluster] register command now copies only the PXF pxf.control extension file to the Greenplum Database installation. Run this command after your first installation of PXF, and/or after you upgrade your Greenplum Database installation.
• PXF 6 no longer requires initialization, and deprecates the init and reset commands. pxf [cluster] init is now equivalent to pxf [cluster] register, and pxf [cluster] reset is a no-op.

• PXF 6 includes new and changed configuration; see About the PXF Configuration Files for more information:

  • PXF 6 integrates with Apache Log4j 2; the PXF logging configuration file is now named pxf-log4j2.xml, and is in xml format.

  • PXF 6 adds a new configuration file for the PXF server application, pxf-application.properties; this file includes:

    • New properties to configure the PXF streaming thread pool.
    • New pxf.log.level property to set the PXF logging level.

    • Configuration properties moved from the PXF 5 pxf-env.sh file and renamed:

      pxf-env.sh Property Name	pxf-application.properties Property Name
      PXF_MAX_THREADS	pxf.max.threads

  • PXF 6 adds new configuration environment variables to pxf-env.sh to simplify the registration of external library dependencies:

    New Property Name	Description
    PXF_LOADER_PATH	Additional directories and JARs for PXF to class-load.
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH	Additional directories and native libraries for PXF to load.

    
    See Registering PXF Library Dependencies for more information.

  • PXF 6 deprecates the PXF_FRAGMENTER_CACHE configuration property; fragment metadata caching is no longer configurable and is now always enabled.

Profiles

• PXF 6 introduces new profile names and deprecates some older profile names. The old profile names still work, but it is highly recommended to switch to using the new profile names:

  New Profile Name	Old/Deprecated Profile Name
  hive	Hive
  hive:rc	HiveRC
  hive:orc	HiveORC
  hive:orc	HiveVectorizedORC1
  hive:text	HiveText
  jdbc	Jdbc
  hbase	HBase

  
  ¹ To use the HiveVectorizedORC profile in PXF 6, specify the hive:orc profile name with the new VECTORIZE=true custom option.

• PXF adds support for natively reading an ORC file located in Hadoop, an object store, or a network file system. See the Hadoop ORC and Object Store ORC documentation for prerequisites and usage information.

• PXF adds support for reading and writing comma-separated value form text data located in Hadoop, an object store, or a network file system though a separate CSV profile. See the Hadoop Text and Object Store Text documentation for usage information.

• PXF supports predicate pushdown on VARCHAR data types.

• PXF supports predicate pushdown for the IN operator when you specify one of the *:parquet profiles to read a parquet file.

• PXF supports specifying a codec short name (alias) rather than the Java class name when you create a writable external table for a *:text, *:csv, or *:SequenceFile profile that includes a COMPRESSION_CODEC.

Monitoring

• PXF now supports monitoring of the PXF Service process at runtime. Refer to About PXF Service Runtime Monitoring for more information.

Logging

• PXF improves the display of error messages in the psql client, in some cases including a HINT that provides possible error resolution actions.
• When PXF is configured to auto-terminate on detection of an out of memory condition, it now logs messages to $PXF_LOGDIR/pxf-oom.log rather than catalina.out.

Removed Features

PXF version 6.0.0 removes:

• The THREAD-SAFE external table custom option (deprecated since 5.10.0).
• The PXF_USER_IMPERSONATION, PXF_PRINCIPAL, and PXF_KEYTAB configuration properties in pxf-env.sh (deprecated since 5.10.0).
• The jdbc.user.impersonation configuration property in jdbc-site.xml (deprecated since 5.10.0).
• The Hadoop profile names HdfsTextSimple, HdfsTextMulti, Avro, Json, Parquet, and SequenceWritable (deprecated since 5.0.1).

Resolved Issues

PXF 6.0.0 resolves these issues:

Deprecated Features

Deprecated features may be removed in a future major release of PXF. PXF version 6.x deprecates:

• The PXF_FRAGMENTER_CACHE configuration property (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0).
• The pxf [cluster] init commands (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0).
• The pxf [cluster] reset commands (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0).
• The Hive profile names Hive, HiveText, HiveRC, HiveORC, and HiveVectorizedORC (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0). Refer to Connectors, Data Formats, and Profiles in the PXF Hadoop documentation for the new profile names.
• The HBase profile name (now hbase) (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0).
• The Jdbc profile name (now jdbc) (deprecated since PXF version 6.0.0).
• Specifying a COMPRESSION_CODEC using the Java class name; use the codec short name instead.

Known Issues and Limitations

PXF 6.x has these known issues and limitations: