cloudnative-pg/cnpg-playground

CNPG Playground is a local learning environment for CloudNativePG that uses Docker and Kind to simulate a multi-region infrastructure on a single machine.

The tool addresses the challenge of learning and experimenting with CloudNativePG in a realistic but locally-runnable setup. It emulates a two-region infrastructure with each region containing object storage powered by RustFS containers and a Kubernetes cluster deployed via Kind. Each cluster consists of multiple node types: a control plane node, an infrastructure node, an application node, and three nodes dedicated to PostgreSQL. The environment is managed through three shell scripts: setup.sh provisions the clusters with customizable region names, info.sh displays status and access information, and teardown.sh removes all resources.

The playground suits developers who want to experiment with CloudNativePG without requiring cloud infrastructure or significant hardware resources. It works well for learning scenarios, testing configurations, and developing against multi-region setups locally. The tool provides configuration flexibility through environment variables that control the RustFS image, S3 credentials, port assignments, cluster naming conventions, and optional CSI hostpath driver deployment. Prerequisites include Docker, Git, Kubectl, the cnpg kubectl plugin, and Kind; additional tools like curl, jq, stern, and kubectx are recommended for an improved experience.

The project maintains active development with regular updates to its setup and configuration scripts. The codebase demonstrates attention to user experience through comprehensive documentation of prerequisites, environment variables, and architecture diagrams. The tool includes thoughtful optional enhancements such as kubectl plugins for secret decoding and certificate inspection, indicating responsiveness to practical workflow needs.