Hi all, A nice recent contribution [1], still under review, proposes to create a separate admin tool command for setting up the database schema.
Currently, schema setup is done as part of realm bootstrapping [2], which can happen at server bootstrap, when running the tool's bootstrap command, or on-demand, depending on the RealmContextResolver in use. For this reason, the setup script must be idempotent. But the PR raised several questions. I will try to summarize them here: 1) Should schema setup be separate from realm bootstrapping? 2) Should the server perform schema setup at all? If so, when? At startup, or when a new realm is resolved? - Side question: if the server doesn't perform schema setup, how are tests going to do it? 3) Do we want/need to support – or at least leave the door open for – different schemas per realm? 4) If we introduce an option to control how schema setup is done: - Should it be a configuration option in application.properties? It would then be available to both server and tool. - Should it be an option of the admin tool's `bootstrap` command? Opt-in or opt-out? - Should it be an admin tool's separate command like `setup` ? For 4) I would be in favor of a new configuration option, e.g.: polaris.schema.setup-mode=NEVER|STARTUP|PER_REALM It would be accessible to both server and tool, and the default could be NEVER for production, and AT_STARTUP for tests. PER_REALM could be introduced later. I'm curious to see what others think. Thanks, Alex [1] https://github.com/apache/polaris/pull/2196 [2] https://github.com/apache/polaris/blob/2117dbd08e8352b32a2c948ed6c166d7c77da50a/persistence/relational-jdbc/src/main/java/org/apache/polaris/persistence/relational/jdbc/JdbcMetaStoreManagerFactory.java#L148-L158
