The PR preview for f976289 is available at theforeman-foreman-documentation-preview-pr-5031.surge.sh

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I am unsure about this change as is. I checked the currently available versions on the Foreman platform OS:

$ podman run --rm -it docker.io/library/ubuntu:jammy /bin/bash -c "apt-get update && apt-cache show postgresql" | rg "^Package:|^Version:"
Package: postgresql
Version: 14+238
$ podman run --rm -it docker.io/library/debian:bookworm /bin/bash -c "apt-get update && apt-cache show postgresql" | rg "^Package:|^Version:"
Package: postgresql
Version: 15+248+deb12u1
$ podman run --rm -it quay.io/almalinuxorg/almalinux:9.8 dnf info postgresql | rg "^Name|^Version|^Source"
Name         : postgresql
Version      : 13.23
Source       : postgresql-13.23-3.el9_8.src.rpm

This makes me believe that we cannot say both "please use PG 16" and "use the latest PG version shipped by your OS vendor".

Is there a ticket or any PR in foreman/katello/pulp to track this?

Aha:

$ podman run --rm -it quay.io/almalinuxorg/almalinux:10.2 dnf info postgresql | rg "^Name|^Version|^Source"
Name         : postgresql
Version      : 16.14
Source       : postgresql16-16.14-1.el10_2.src.rpm

Is this related to Foreman/Foreman+Katello on EL10?

You are correct, I was just looking into it.
I wonder if we should switch to recommending a containerized deployment for custom DB support too. This will definitely simplify our guidelines and make it OS-agnostic.

I lean to only state we require PostgreSQL 16 for the containerized installation and not touch the existing RPM/deb-based installations. We don't even test PostgreSQL 16 with those.

Let me reiterate the possibilities here, so we can all decide how to continue with this:
Given:
RHEL < 10 and debian < 13 have lower versions of PG available
Suggested solutions:

1. stop recommending the PG version from the OS and point to postgres repos
2. set a minimum OS version for the postgres server
3. containerized PG (with the caveat that it is not intuitive for the users)
4. Remove specific instructions on how to obtain PG 16 from https://github.com/theforeman/foreman-documentation/blob/master/guides/common/modules/proc_installing-postgresql-as-an-external-database.adoc?plain=1 and only define the requirements and configuration.

Let's look at the various builds we produce and what I'd recommend:

• foreman-deb: keep it as-is
• foreman-el: keep it as-is
• katello: keep it as-is
• orcharhino: keep it as-is (looking at @maximiliankolb for that)
• containerized: set the supported version to 16. Recommend an EL 10 installation for the external DB and use RPM packages.

I completely agree with what @ekohl said above.

OK, so I'll put the PG 16 requirement only for the containerized deployment and add an EL10 + RPM recommendation to the external DB procedure.

What do you think about this version?
I have added a special case for containerized deployments.