Cookbook recipe

Logical replication: publication and subscription setup

Applies to PostgreSQL 13–17 Last reviewed May 2026 Grounded in source

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A production experience capsule based on real incident patterns.

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Estimated investigation4 min

Scenario

You need to replicate specific tables to another major version or a different schema. Logical replication moves row changes, not raw WAL blocks. Diagnose it Set wal_level and create a publication: -- publisher (wal_level=logical) CREATE PUBLICATION…

Investigation Path

You need to replicate specific tables to another major version or a different schema. Logical replication moves row changes, not raw WAL blocks.

Diagnose it

Set wal_level and create a publication:

-- publisher (wal_level=logical)
CREATE PUBLICATION pub_orders FOR TABLE orders, customers;
-- subscriber
CREATE SUBSCRIPTION sub_orders
  CONNECTION 'host=pub dbname=app'
  PUBLICATION pub_orders;

Why it happens

Logical replication decodes WAL into row-level changes and applies them on the subscriber. Unlike physical replication, it works across versions and replicates a chosen subset of tables.

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Concepts on this page

Primary key Replication Schema
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