Configuring Foreman/Satellite to Use a Managed Postgresql Backend

"Unsupported 101"

One of my biggest pet peeves when installing a product provided by a vendor is when I see vendor instructions like “You can only install the same version of X that is installed with our tool if using an external database.” In a cloud environment, this is particularly frustrating because it means you have to spin up a new server that now has to be patched and maintained, costs extra money, and won’t come with any of the advantages of the managed solutions provided by major cloud service providers like backups, replication, automatic failover, etc. This post documents my experiences with setting up foreman/satellite using an Azure managed flexible Postgres instance. If you choose to follow along with this, please be advised this is completely unsupported.