PgBouncer 1.25.2 Documentation on PIG.CENTER

Features

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Several levels of brutality when rotating connections:

Session pooling

Most polite method. When a client connects, a server connection will be assigned to it for the whole duration it stays connected. When the client disconnects, the server connection will be put back into pool. This mode supports all PostgreSQL features.

Transaction pooling

A server connection is assigned to a client only during a transaction. When PgBouncer notices that the transaction is over, the server will be put back into the pool. This mode breaks a few session-based features of PostgreSQL. You can use it only when the application cooperates by not using features that break. See the table below for incompatible features.

Statement pooling

Most aggressive method. This is transaction pooling with a twist: Multi-statement transactions are disallowed. This is meant to enforce “autocommit” mode on the client, mostly targeted at PL/Proxy.
Low memory requirements (2 kB per connection by default). This is because PgBouncer does not need to see full packets at once.

Configuration: pgbouncer.ini

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Description

The configuration file is in “ini” format. Section names are between [ and ]. Lines starting with ; or # are taken as comments and ignored. The characters ; and # are not recognized as special when they appear later in the line.

Generic settings

logfile

Specifies the log file. For daemonization (-d), either this or syslog need to be set.

Usage: pgbouncer command

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Synopsis

pgbouncer [-d][-R][-v][-u user] <pgbouncer.ini>
pgbouncer -V|-h

On Windows, the options are:

pgbouncer.exe [-v][-u user] <pgbouncer.ini>
pgbouncer.exe -V|-h

Additional options for setting up a Windows service:

pgbouncer.exe --regservice <pgbouncer.ini>
pgbouncer.exe --unregservice <pgbouncer.ini>

Description

pgbouncer is a PostgreSQL connection pooler. Any target application can be connected to pgbouncer as if it were a PostgreSQL server, and pgbouncer will create a connection to the actual server, or it will reuse one of its existing connections.

PgBouncer compilation and installation

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Building

PgBouncer depends on few things to get compiled:

GNU Make 3.81+
Libevent 2.0+
pkg-config
OpenSSL 1.0.1+ for TLS support
(optional) c-ares as alternative to Libevent’s evdns
(optional) LDAP libraries
(optional) PAM libraries

When dependencies are installed just run:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
$ make
$ make install

If you are building from Git, or are building for Windows, please see separate build instructions below.

DNS lookup support

PgBouncer does host name lookups at connect time instead of just once at configuration load time. This requires an asynchronous DNS implementation. The following table shows supported backends and their probing order:

Source Releases Download

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PgBouncer 1.25

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.25.2.tar.gz	2026-05-08	865371 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.25.1.tar.gz	2025-12-03	864801 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.25.0.tar.gz	2025-11-09	863322 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.24

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.24.1.tar.gz	2025-04-16	717796 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.24.0.tar.gz	2025-01-10	706573 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.23

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.23.1.tar.gz	2024-08-02	700025 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.23.0.tar.gz	2024-07-03	694845 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.22

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.22.1.tar.gz	2024-03-04	677351 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.22.0.tar.gz	2024-01-31	670589 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.21

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.21.0.tar.gz	2023-10-16	668211 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.20

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.20.1.tar.gz	2023-08-09	638844 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.20.0.tar.gz	2023-07-20	638020 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.19

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.19.1.tar.gz	2023-05-31	623569 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.19.0.tar.gz	2023-05-04	616947 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.18

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.18.0.tar.gz	2022-12-12	600825 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.17

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.17.0.tar.gz	2022-03-23	598294 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.16

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.16.1.tar.gz	2021-11-11	591450 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.16.0.tar.gz	2021-08-09	592136 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.15

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.15.0.tar.gz	2020-11-19	588042 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.14

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.14.0.tar.gz	2020-06-11	578955 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.13

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.13.0.tar.gz	2020-04-27	574955 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.12

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.12.0.tar.gz	2019-10-17	567465 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.11

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.11.0.tar.gz	2019-08-27	571414 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.10

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.10.0.tar.gz	2019-07-01	480571 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.9

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.9.0.tar.gz	2018-08-13	469300 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.8

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.8.1.tar.gz	2017-12-20	465930 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.8.tar.gz	2017-12-19	465612 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.7

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.7.2.tar.gz	2016-02-26	462374 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.7.1.tar.gz	2016-02-18	461903 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.7.tar.gz	2015-12-18	459080 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.6

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.6.1.tar.gz	2015-09-03	431076 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.6.tar.gz	2015-08-01	412700 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.5

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.5.5.tar.gz	2015-04-09	336145 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.5.4.tar.gz	2012-11-28	339610 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.5.3.tar.gz	2012-09-12	339013 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.5.2.tar.gz	2012-05-29	335338 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.5.1.tar.gz	2012-04-17	334413 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.5.tar.gz	2012-01-05	411488 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.4

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.4.2.tgz	2011-06-16	283204 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.4.1.tgz	2011-04-01	282728 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.4.tgz	2011-01-11	231691 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.3

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.3.4.tgz	2010-09-09	167957 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.3.3.tgz	2010-05-10	167476 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.3.2.tgz	2010-03-15	166756 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.3.1.tgz	2009-07-06	161518 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.3.tgz	2009-02-18	160154 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.2

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.2.3.tgz	2008-08-08	145372 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.2.2.tgz	2008-08-06	145017 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.2.1.tgz	2008-08-04	144903 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.2.tgz	2008-07-29	143915 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.1

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.1.2.tgz	2007-12-10	122054 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.1.1.tgz	2007-10-26	121042 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.1.tgz	2007-10-09	120462 bytes	sha256

PgBouncer 1.0

File	Date	Size	SHA256
pgbouncer-1.0.8.tgz	2007-06-18	93636 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.7.tgz	2007-04-19	93086 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.6.tgz	2007-04-12	92244 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.5.tgz	2007-04-11	91934 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.4.tgz	2007-04-11	91889 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.3.tgz	2007-04-11	91489 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.2.tgz	2007-03-28	90555 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.1.tgz	2007-03-15	89609 bytes	sha256
pgbouncer-1.0.tgz	2007-03-13	88587 bytes	sha256

Binary Packages

Various OS distributions have their native package/port of PgBouncer. So it might be good to first check if it is already available on your OS.

Changelog

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

PgBouncer 1.25.x

2026-05-08 - PgBouncer 1.25.2 - “Human touch with fresh twist in title race full of uncertainties”

Security
- Fix CVE-2026-6664: An integer overflow in network packet parsing code in PgBouncer before 1.25.2 bypasses a boundary check and can lead to a crash. An unauthenticated remote attacker can crash PgBouncer with a malformed SCRAM authentication packet.
- Fix CVE-2026-6665: The SCRAM code in PgBouncer before 1.25.2 did not check the return value of strlcat() correctly when building the contents of the SCRAM client-final-message. A malicious backend that sends a SCRAM server-final-message with a long nonce can trigger a stack overflow.
- Fix CVE-2026-6666: A possible null pointer reference in PgBouncer before 1.25.2 could lead to a crash if a server sends an error response without an SQLSTATE field.
- Fix CVE-2026-6667: PgBouncer before 1.25.2 did not perform an appropriate authorization check for the KILL_CLIENT admin command. All users with access to the administration console, which itself requires authorization, could run this command. It should only be allowed for users listed in the admin_users parameter.
Fixes

Community

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tutorials

How to Set Up PgBouncer for Postgres Plus Standard Server

Good overview of PgBouncer concepts.
What is the point of bouncing?

Discusses differences between pooling modes.

Support

Project page at GitHub
Issue tracker at GitHub
PgBouncer section at Stack Overflow
Community discussions at GitHub

Frequently Asked Questions

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How to connect to PgBouncer?

PgBouncer acts as a Postgres server, so simply point your client to the PgBouncer port.

How to load-balance queries between several servers?

PgBouncer does not have an internal multi-host configuration. It is possible via external tools:

DNS round-robin. Use several IPs behind one DNS name. PgBouncer does not look up DNS each time a new connection is launched. Instead, it caches all IPs and does round-robin internally. Note: if there are more than 8 IPs behind one name, the DNS backend must support the EDNS0 protocol. See README for details.