> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://anaconda.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Connecting to external Postgres

<Warning>
  Anaconda recommends that you connect to your external Postgres instance immediately after installation completes. If you do not, you will need to create a dump file from the internal Workbench Postgres instance, then import it into your own Postgres instance, ensuring that it mirrors the internal setup.
</Warning>

You can connect Workbench to your organization’s pre-existing Postgres instance for both BYOK8s and Gravity installations. Connecting to an external Postgres instance enables you to take advantage of multiple High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) options your organization may already have in place.

Workbench also supports connections to external Postgres instances that are hosted within the same overarching cluster environment. For example, your organization can have a multi-namespace/region deployment of Postgres within your Kubernetes cluster that connects to Workbench via the Service name. Combining this with dynamic block Persistent Storage and Managed Persistence enables Workbench to rapidly relocate deployed projects from failing nodes to healthy ones utilizing standard Kubernetes pod scheduling.

## Connecting to external Postgres

To connect to your external Postgres instance:

1. Create a Workbench account with read/write access and set the account’s password.
2. Open your `anaconda-enterprise-anaconda-platform.yml` file and edit the following section:

   ```yaml theme={null}
   db: # Database client configuration
   host: <IP/Hostname> # Database hostname
   port: 5432
   username: "<postgres-account>"
   password: "<password>"
   ```
3. Save your changes, then restart all pods:

   ```sh theme={null}
   kubectl get pods | grep ap- | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs kubectl delete pods
   ```
4. Once the pods are in a running state, confirm that the following databases have been created in Postgres.

   ```
   anaconda_auth
   anaconda_auth_escrow
   anaconda_deploy
   anaconda_git
   anaconda_operation_controller
   anaconda_repository
   anaconda_storage
   anaconda_ui
   anaconda_workspace
   ```

   <Warning>
     If a pod shows a crashloop state, inspect the pod’s logs. The most common cause of a crashloop state is a misconfiguration.
   </Warning>

   <Warning>
     If the `anaconda_auth` database is not created in Postgres, you must update the following environmental variables in the `anaconda-enterprise-ap-auth` deployment:

     ```yaml theme={null}
     # Replace <POSTGRES> with the hostname or service name of the Postgres instance
     # Replace <POSTGRES-ACCOUNT> with the user account name for your Postgres instance
     # Replace <PASSWORD> with the user account password for your Postgres instance

     env:
       - name: WAIT_FOR_IT
         value: '<POSTGRES>:5432'
       - name: DB_USER
         value: <POSTGRES-ACCOUNT>
       - name: DB_PASSWORD
         value: <PASSWORD>
       - name: DB_ADDR
         value: <POSTGRES>
     ```
   </Warning>