Allow CREATE SUBSCRIPTION command without needing superuser privilege

[burggraf]

Edit: this requires PostgreSQL v17, its deployment is in progress.

Supabase currently supports: CREATE PUBLICATION my_publication FOR ALL TABLES;

but does not support: CREATE SUBSCRIPTION my_subscription CONNECTION '<connection_string>' PUBLICATION my_publication;

The error given is: ERROR: 42501: must be superuser to create subscriptions

In order to be able to use logical replication to replicate individual tables (or all tables in a schema) between Supabase projects, CREATE SUBSCRIPTION should be executable by the postgres user without supseruser privileges, in parity with the CREATE PUBLICATION command.

[ianwoodfill]

Any update here? This guide is clearly outdated if this is no longer supported: https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/postgres/setup-replication-external

[alexandredev3]

Any updates on this issue? I'm having the same problem

[frankyw]

Seems like subscriptions are no longer supported, period.

https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/postgres/roles-superuser

[rustamd]

Looking for this as well, hopefully can get implemented soon.

[steve-chavez]

This will come for free once pg 17 is supported.

[t0mdicks0n]

I followed the same guide on how to setup replication on Supabase but superuser is needed so the guide is obsolete? At least remove that page on the docs almost 1 year after users in this thread notified you about it?

https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/postgres/setup-replication-external

[encima]

Hey folks,

The guide there is for replicating to an external system so the subscription is created on the target database. Creating publications etc are supported without superuser permissions

[Lanznx]

any update?

[encima]

Yep, this is possible for the postgres user as of 17.4 and is rolling out across regions currently

On Sat, 14 Jun 2025 at 09:15, Brandon Lu @.***> wrote:

Lanznx left a comment (supabase/postgres#1646) https://github.com/supabase/postgres/issues/1646

any update?

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[soedirgo]

Update: PG17 has now been rolled out to all regions. You can do CREATE SUBSCRIPTION by upgrading to PG17 via Project Settings > Infrastructure, so closing this.

[vrijmetse]

I attempted to create subscription but got this error

ERROR: 08P01: could not create replication slot "rds_sub": ERROR: must be superuser or replication role to use logical replication slots in the 'rds' namespace

[encima]

@vrijmetse Are you on Postgres 17?

[vrijmetse]

@vrijmetse Are you on Postgres 17?

Yes 17.6.1.011

[encima]

Ah, that error looks like a non supabase issue? You can create a normal subscription but not one for the RDS namespace

EDIT: can confirm this is not a Supabase issue. The slot in the other DB may need superuser perms to create. You can precreate the slot and specify or you can use rds_superuser