Database setup for PostgreSQL#

To use Guacamole with a PostgreSQL database, you will need:

An instance of the PostgreSQL database server.
Sufficient permission to create new databases, to create new users, and to grant those users permissions.
Network access to the database from the Guacamole server.

If this is not the case, install PostgreSQL now. Most distributions will provide a convenient PostgreSQL package which will set up everything for you. If you prefer Docker, the postgres Docker image is also a reasonable option. If you don’t wish to use PostgreSQL, Guacamole additionally supports:

Warning

You will need to restart the Guacamole web application in order to complete configuration. Doing this will disconnect all active users, so please:

Do this only at a time that you can tolerate service unavailability, such as a scheduled maintenance window.
Keep in mind that configuration errors may prevent Guacamole from starting back up.

Creating the Guacamole database#

It is best practice to use a dedicated database and user for the Guacamole web application, and these instructions cover only this method.

If using the postgres Docker image:

Set the POSTGRES_DB environment variable to the desired name of the database. The Docker image will automatically create this database when the container starts for the first time.

If using a native installation of PostgreSQL:

Manually create a database for PostgreSQL by executing a CREATE DATABASE query with the psql client:

CREATE DATABASE guacamole_db;

Initializing the database#

Native Webapp (Tomcat)

The schema scripts necessary to initialize the PostgreSQL version of Guacamole’s database are provided within the postgresql/schema/ directory of guacamole-auth-jdbc-1.6.0.tar.gz, which must be downloaded from the release page for Apache Guacamole 1.6.0 and extracted first.

Running each of these scripts against the newly created database will initialize it with Guacamole’s schema. You can run these scripts using the standard psql client, but the method of running psql varies depending on whether you are using Docker to provide your database.

If using the postgres Docker image:

The schema initialization scripts should be run against the newly created database by running the standard psql command-line client within the container:

$ cat schema/*.sql | docker exec -i some-postgresql \
    psql -U guacamole_user -d guacamole_db -f -

If using a native installation of PostgreSQL:

The schema initialization scripts should be run against the newly created database using the standard psql client directly from the command-line:

$ cat schema/*.sql | psql -d guacamole_db -f -

Container (Docker)

The schema scripts necessary to initialize the PostgreSQL version of Guacamole’s database are provided within the /opt/guacamole/extensions/guacamole-auth-jdbc/postgresql/schema directory of the guacamole/guacamole image.

Additionally, an initdb.sh script is provided at /opt/guacamole/bin/initdb.sh that can be used to extract the required schema initialization script:

$ docker run --rm guacamole/guacamole /opt/guacamole/bin/initdb.sh --postgresql > initdb.sql

If using the postgres Docker image via Docker Compose: : The easiest way to initialize Guacamole’s database is to use a volume mount to map the bundled schema initialization scripts from the Guacamole container into the database container. For example, if using Docker Compose:

Declare a named volume at the root level of your docker-compose.yml:
```
volumes:
    initdb:
```
Reference the named volume within your Guacamole service, effectively pulling the schema initialization scripts from that container and into the volume:
```
volumes:
    - "initdb:/opt/guacamole/extensions/guacamole-auth-jdbc/postgresql/schema:ro"
```
Reference the named volume within your database service, bringing the schema initialization scripts into the directory used by the database image for one-time initialization:
```
volumes:
    - "initdb:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d:ro"
```

If using the postgres Docker image without Docker Compose:

Use the initdb.sh script included with the guacamole/guacamole image to send the required initialization script to the standard psql command-line client within the database container:

$ docker run --rm guacamole/guacamole /opt/guacamole/bin/initd.sh --postgresql | \
    docker exec -i some-postgresql psql -U guacamole_user -d guacamole_db -f -

If using a native installation of PostgreSQL:

Use the initdb.sh script included with the guacamole/guacamole image to automatically produce the SQL required to initialize an existing database:

$ docker run --rm guacamole/guacamole /opt/guacamole/bin/initd.sh --postgresql | \
    psql -d guacamole_db -f -

Granting Guacamole access to the database#

For Guacamole to be able to execute queries against the database, you must create a new user for the database and grant that user sufficient privileges to manage the contents of all tables in the database.

If using the postgres Docker image:

Set the POSTGRES_USER environment variable to the desired name of the dedicated user, and the POSTGRES_PASSWORD environment variable to the desired password. The Docker image will automatically create this user when the container starts and grant them full access to the Guacamole database.

If using a native installation of PostgreSQL:

The dedicated user for Guacamole must be manually created and granted sufficient privileges. The user created for Guacamole needs only SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE permissions on all tables in the Guacamole database, as well as SELECT and USAGE permission on all sequences within all Guacamole tables.

CREATE USER guacamole_user WITH PASSWORD 'some_password';
GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO guacamole_user;
GRANT SELECT,USAGE ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO guacamole_user;

Upgrading an existing Guacamole database#

If you are upgrading from a version of Guacamole older than 1.6.0, you may need to run one or more database schema upgrade scripts located within the postgresql/schema/upgrade/ directory of guacamole-auth-jdbc-1.6.0.tar.gz (available from the release page for Apache Guacamole 1.6.0).

Each of these scripts is named upgrade-pre-VERSION.sql where VERSION is the version of Guacamole where those changes were introduced. They need to be run when you are upgrading from a version of Guacamole older than VERSION.

If there are no upgrade-pre-VERSION.sql scripts present in the schema/upgrade/ directory which apply to your existing Guacamole database, then the schema has not changed between your version and the version your are installing, and there is no need to run any database upgrade scripts.

These scripts are incremental and, when relevant, must be run in order. For example, if you are upgrading an existing database from version 0.9.13-incubating to version 1.0.0, you would need to run the upgrade-pre-0.9.14.sql script (because 0.9.13-incubating is older than 0.9.14), followed by the upgrade-pre-1.0.0.sql script (because 0.9.13-incubating is also older than 1.0.0).

Important

Because the permissions granted to the Guacamole-specific PostgreSQL user when the database was first created will not automatically be granted for any new tables and sequences, you will also need to re-grant those permissions after applying any upgrade relevant scripts:

GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO guacamole_user;
GRANT SELECT,USAGE ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO guacamole_user;

Installing/Enabling support for PostgreSQL#

Guacamole is configured differently depending on whether Guacamole was installed natively or using the provided Docker images. The documentation here covers both methods.

Native Webapp (Tomcat)

Native installations of Guacamole under Apache Tomcat or similar are configured by modifying the contents of GUACAMOLE_HOME (Guacamole’s configuration directory), which is located at /etc/guacamole by default and may need to be created first:

You should have a copy of guacamole-auth-jdbc-1.6.0.tar.gz from earlier when you created and initialized the database.
Create the GUACAMOLE_HOME/extensions and GUACAMOLE_HOME/lib directories, if they do not already exist.
Copy postgresql/guacamole-auth-jdbc-postgresql-1.6.0.jar within GUACAMOLE_HOME/extensions.
Copy the JDBC driver for your database to GUACAMOLE_HOME/lib. For PostgreSQL, the proper driver is the JDBC driver provided by the PostgreSQL project.
Configure Guacamole to use database authentication, as described below.

Note

Download and documentation links for all officially supported extensions for a particular version of Guacamole are always provided in the release notes for that version. The copy of the documentation you are reading now is from Apache Guacamole 1.6.0.

If you are using a different version of Guacamole, please locate that version within the release archives and consult the documentation for that release instead.

Container (Docker)

Docker installations of Guacamole include a bundled copy of Apache Tomcat and are configured using environment variables. The startup process of the Docker image automatically populates GUACAMOLE_HOME (Guacamole’s configuration directory) based on the values of these variables.

If deploying Guacamole using Docker Compose:

You will need to add at least one relevant environment variable to the environment section of your guacamole/guacamole container, such as the POSTGRESQL_ENABLED environment variable:

POSTGRESQL_ENABLED: "true"

If instead deploying Guacamole by running docker run manually:

The same environment variable(s) will need to be provided using the -e option. For example:

$ docker run --name some-guacamole \
    -e POSTGRESQL_ENABLED="true" \
    -d -p 8080:8080 guacamole/guacamole

If POSTGRESQL_ENABLED is set to false, the extension will NOT be installed, even if other related environment variables have been set. This can be used to temporarily disable usage of an extension without needing to remove all other related configuration.

You don’t strictly need to set POSTGRESQL_ENABLED if other related environment variables are provided, but the extension will be installed only if at least one related environment variable is set.

Required configuration#

Additional configuration options must be specified for Guacamole to properly connect to your database. These options are specific to the database being used, and must be set correctly for authentication to work.

The options absolutely required by the database authentication extension are relatively few and self-explanatory, describing only which database will be used and how Guacamole will authenticate when querying that database:

Native Webapp (Tomcat)

If deploying Guacamole natively, you will need to add a section to your guacamole.properties that looks like the following:

postgresql-database: guacamole_db
postgresql-username: guacamole_user
postgresql-password: some_password

The properties that must be set in all cases for any Guacamole installation using this extension are:

postgresql-database: The name of the database that you created for Guacamole. This is given as “guacamole_db” in the examples given in this chapter.
postgresql-username: The username of the user that Guacamole should use to connect to the database. This is given as “guacamole_user” in the examples given in this chapter.
postgresql-password: The password Guacamole should provide when authenticating with the database. This is given as “some_password” in the examples given in this chapter.

Container (Docker)

If deploying Guacamole using Docker Compose, you will need to add a set of environment variables to the environment section of your guacamole/guacamole container that looks like the following:

POSTGRESQL_DATABASE: 'guacamole_db'
POSTGRESQL_USERNAME: 'guacamole_user'
POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD: 'some_password'

If instead deploying Guacamole by running docker run manually, these same environment variables will need to be provided using the -e option. For example:

$ docker run --name some-guacamole \
    -e POSTGRESQL_DATABASE="guacamole_db" \
    -e POSTGRESQL_USERNAME="guacamole_user" \
    -e POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD="some_password" \
    -d -p 8080:8080 guacamole/guacamole

The environment variables that must be set in all cases for any Docker-based Guacamole installation using this extension are:

POSTGRESQL_DATABASE: The name of the database that you created for Guacamole. This is given as “guacamole_db” in the examples given in this chapter.
POSTGRESQL_USERNAME: The username of the user that Guacamole should use to connect to the database. This is given as “guacamole_user” in the examples given in this chapter.
POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD: The password Guacamole should provide when authenticating with the database. This is given as “some_password” in the examples given in this chapter.

Hint

Double-check these values. You will not be able to sign into Guacamole after installation if these parameters do not match the correct database name, username, and password.

Completing installation#

Native Webapp (Tomcat)

Guacamole will only reread its configuration and load newly-installed extensions during startup, so Tomcat will need to be restarted before these changes can take effect. Restart Tomcat and give the new functionality a try.

You do not need to restart guacd.

Hint

If Guacamole does not come back online after restarting Tomcat, check the logs. Configuration problems may prevent Guacamole from starting up, and any such errors will be recorded in Tomcat’s logs.

Container (Docker)

The environment variables that configure the behavior of Docker can only be set at the time the Docker container is created. To apply these configuration changes, you will need to recreate the container.

If your Guacamole container was deployed using Docker Compose:: Simply making the desired changes to your docker-compose.yml and running docker compose up is sufficient. Docker Compose will automatically recognize that the environment variables of the container have changed and recreate it.
If your Guacamole container was deployed manually (using docker run):: You wll need to manually use docker rm to remove the old container and then manually recreate it with docker run and the new environment variables.

Hint

If Guacamole does not come back online after recreating the container, check the Docker logs. Configuration problems may prevent Guacamole from starting up, and any such errors will be recorded in the Docker logs for the Guacamole container.

Logging in#

The default Guacamole user created by the provided SQL scripts is “guacadmin”, with a default password of “guacadmin”. Once you have verified that the database authentication is working, you should change your password immediately.

Once you have successfully logged in and changed your password, you can begin using the web UI to create other users, groups, and connections. More detailed instructions for doing this are given in Guacamole’s administrative interface.

Database setup for PostgreSQL

Contents

Database setup for PostgreSQL#

Creating the Guacamole database#

Initializing the database#

Granting Guacamole access to the database#

Upgrading an existing Guacamole database#

Installing/Enabling support for PostgreSQL#

Required configuration#

Additional configuration (optional)#

Enforcing password policies#

Password complexity#

Password age / expiration#

Preventing password reuse#

Concurrent use of Guacamole connections#

External users and connections#

Access window enforcment#

Completing installation#

Logging in#