Installing and Uninstalling a Plugin Using SQL Commands

RDS provides the PostgreSQL plugin management solution for user root. Except the following plugins, you need to manually create other plugins by referring to this section.

auto_explain
passwordcheck
pg_profile_pro
pg_sql_history
plpgsql
wal2json
test_decoding

RDS for PostgreSQL plugins only take effect on the databases you created the plugins for. To use a plugin on databases, it has to be created separately for each database.

The latest minor versions of RDS for PostgreSQL 11 and later versions allow user root to create plugins (create extension) or delete plugins (drop extension).

Creating a Plugin

Connect to the database where a plugin needs to be created as user root and run the following SQL statements:

select control_extension('create','<EXTENSION_NAME>', '<SCHEMA>');

EXTENSION_NAME indicates the plugin name. For more information, see Supported Plugins.
SCHEMA indicates the name of the schema where the plugin is created. If this parameter is not specified, the public schema is used by default.

Example:

Create postgis in the public schema.

-- Specify the public schema for creating the plugin.
select control_extension('create','postgis', 'public');
       control_extension       
 ------------------------------
  create postgis successfully.
 (1 row)
-- If the schema parameter is not specified, the default schema is public.
select control_extension('create', 'postgis');
      control_extension       
------------------------------
 create postgis successfully.
(1 row)

Deleting a Plugin

Connect to the database where a plugin needs to be created as user root and run the following SQL statements:

select control_extension('drop','<EXTENSION_NAME>', '<SCHEMA>');

EXTENSION_NAME indicates the plugin name. For more information, see Supported Plugins.
SCHEMA indicates the schema name. This parameter does not matter much when you delete a plugin, so you do not need to specify this parameter.

Example:

select control_extension('drop','postgis');
      control_extension      
 ----------------------------
  drop postgis successfully.
 (1 row)

Common Errors

Error 1
```
ERROR:  permission denied for function control_extension
```
Solution: Use root to run the control_extension function.
Error 2
```
ERROR:  function control_extension(unknown, unknown) is not unique
```
Solution: Add the schema parameter in the function. If the schema is not specified, there may be functions with the same name, causing execution failures.
Error 3
```
ERROR:  function control_extension(unknown, unknown) does not exist
```
Solution: Do not create plugins in the postgres database. The control_extension function does not exist in the postgres database because this database is used as an O&M database.