Installation

Install from packages or Docker (recommended)

Method PostgreSQL versions Notes
PGXN / source 12–19 Always gets the latest release
PIG / APT / DNF 14–18 Binary packages from the PIGSTY repository via PGEXT.CLOUD
Docker 12–18 Prebuilt images with the extension enabled in the default database

The fastest way on a machine that already has PostgreSQL 14–18 and the PIGSTY repository configured:

# Any distribution supported by PIG
pig install pg_integrity_checksums

# Debian / Ubuntu (PIGSTY repository configured)
sudo apt install postgresql-16-pg-integrity-checksums

# RHEL / Fedora / Rocky / AlmaLinux (PIGSTY repository configured)
sudo dnf install pg_integrity_checksums_16

psql -d your_database -c "CREATE EXTENSION pg_integrity_checksums;"

Replace 16 with your PostgreSQL major version. The package page is PGEXT.CLOUD: pg_integrity_checksums.

Version note: binary packages are rebuilt by the PIGSTY/PGEXT maintainers after a release and can lag behind PGXN. Check the installed version with SELECT extversion FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'pg_integrity_checksums';.

Docker

Prebuilt images are published to GHCR for PostgreSQL 12–18. The extension is created automatically in POSTGRES_DB on first initialization.

docker run --rm --name pg-integrity \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=demo \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  ghcr.io/victornagibator/pg_integrity_checksums:pg16

Then, from another terminal:

psql -h localhost -U postgres -d demo \
  -c "SELECT extversion FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'pg_integrity_checksums';" \
  -c "SELECT pg_table_logical_checksum('pg_class'::regclass);"

To build an image for another PostgreSQL major version locally:

docker build --build-arg PG_MAJOR=17 -t pg-integrity-checksums:pg17 .

Images are built by the Docker workflow; pull requests and releases are smoke-tested with PostgreSQL 16.

Prerequisites

  • PostgreSQL 12 or later (tested on 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19)
  • C compiler and PostgreSQL development headers
  • Superuser access to install the extension and to run the database-level checksum functions

Privileges: the table, page, cell, tuple and index checksum functions read relation storage directly. They require SELECT on the relation (or on the base table for an index) and reject relations protected by row-level security, because a direct page scan cannot apply RLS policies. The database-level functions are superuser-only; this is enforced in C, not just in SQL.

Note: PostgreSQL 12 and 13 are past end-of-life upstream, but they are still fully supported by this extension. The build deliberately fails with a clear error on PostgreSQL 11 and older, which lack the table-AM API the extension relies on.

Note: this extension is named pg_integrity_checksums specifically to distinguish it from the pg_checksums utility shipped with PostgreSQL core. They are unrelated: the core utility verifies data page checksums on disk, while this extension provides SQL functions for computing checksums.

Build and Install

The extension builds with PGXS, so pg_config must be on your PATH, or you can point make at a specific installation with PG_CONFIG=/path/to/pg_config.

# Clone or extract the extension
git clone https://github.com/VictorNagibator/pg_integrity_checksums

# Go into extension directory
cd pg_integrity_checksums

# Build
make

# Install
make install

# Create extension in your database
psql -d your_database -c "CREATE EXTENSION pg_integrity_checksums;"

Or install it straight from PGXN with the pgxn client:

pgxn install pg_integrity_checksums

The extension is also listed in PGEXT.CLOUD.

Upgrading to 2.2

2.2 adds generic algorithm overloads for FNV-1a 32-bit and 64-bit digests. Existing SQL functions and their 32-bit values are unchanged; page checksums remain 32-bit. Upgrade with:

ALTER EXTENSION pg_integrity_checksums UPDATE TO '2.2.0';

Older CLI releases cannot read v2 baselines created with --hash fnv64; the 0.4 CLI reads both v1 (fnv32) and v2 (fnv64).

Migrating from pg_checksums 1.x

The extension was renamed in 2.0.0 to avoid confusion with PostgreSQL’s core pg_checksums utility. PostgreSQL has no ALTER EXTENSION ... RENAME, so migrate by reinstalling the extension and updating the GUC prefix. See MIGRATION.md for the full checklist:

DROP EXTENSION pg_checksums;
CREATE EXTENSION pg_integrity_checksums;

-- old settings
SET pg_checksums.workers = 4;
SET pg_checksums.strict = on;

-- new settings
SET pg_integrity_checksums.workers = 4;
SET pg_integrity_checksums.strict = on;

SQL function names and checksum values are unchanged, so existing logical and physical baselines remain valid. If DROP EXTENSION fails because of dependent objects, remove or recreate those dependencies explicitly rather than using CASCADE without review.