A Christmas present: PostgreSQL 9.5 RC1

It's been much-delayed, but PostgreSQL 9.5 RC1 is finally available.  This release contains not only fixes for all known issues in 9.5 features, it also contains an "ultimate solution" to multixact truncation handling.  Multixacts were the cause of multiple bugfix releases in versions 9.3 and 9.4, and several hackers have taken the opportunity in 9.5 to implement a new design for this.  This has been a large part of the delay in releasing 9.5.

So: if you plan to upgrade to 9.5, download and test now.  Final will be released in early January, barring discovery of new ghastly bugs in the RC.

To make it easier for you to test, I've updated the postgres95-test Docker image, ready for you to download and try out whatever you want.

9.5 brings us a lot of cool features which are likely to justify upgrading for you:

• UPSERT
• Row Level Security
• Grouping Sets/CUBE/ROLLUP
• Faster sorts for text
• FDW push-down and partitioning support
• BRIN indexes

If you want to read up on the features so you know what to test:

• What's New in 9.5
• My articles on 9.5 for LWN: Part 1 and Part 2
• Discussion on Multxact fixes
• Guide to 9.5 beta testing