ExtendDB

ExtendDB is an independent open source project managed by Amazon Web Services. It is not Amazon DynamoDB and does not contain any DynamoDB source code. "DynamoDB" is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. ExtendDB is a clean-room implementation that speaks the DynamoDB wire protocol. Behavioral differences from the real service are documented in Differences from DynamoDB.

A DynamoDB-compatible API adapter, ExtendDB speaks the DynamoDB wire protocol — any AWS SDK, CLI, or tool that works with DynamoDB works with ExtendDB, unchanged.

Use Cases

• Local development — run DynamoDB workloads on your laptop with zero cloud dependency
• CI/CD pipelines — deterministic integration tests against a DynamoDB-compatible backend
• Self-hosted deployments — run DynamoDB workloads on your own infrastructure (on-premises, private cloud, edge)
• Multi-cloud — use DynamoDB semantics on any cloud that runs PostgreSQL
• Air-gapped environments — DynamoDB functionality with no internet connectivity

Features

• Full DynamoDB wire protocol: CRUD, Query, Scan, Batch, Transactions, Streams, TTL, Import/Export
• SigV4 authentication with IAM compatibility: users, groups, roles, policies, permissions boundaries
• Web management console for account and credential administration
• TLS with automatic self-signed certificate generation (replaceable with CA-signed certs)
• CSRF protection, security headers, session management
• JSON metrics endpoint with DynamoDB CloudWatch-style metric names and dimensions
• Daemon mode with syslog logging, plus --foreground for container and supervisor environments
• PostgreSQL storage — use standard backup, replication, and HA tools

Quick Start

# Build
cargo build --release

# Initialize (creates databases, admin credentials, TLS cert, config file)
./target/release/extenddb init

# Start
./target/release/extenddb serve --config extenddb.toml

# Use with any AWS SDK (TLS with self-signed cert — trust via AWS_CA_BUNDLE)
export AWS_CA_BUNDLE=~/.extenddb/tls/cert.pem
aws dynamodb list-tables --endpoint-url https://127.0.0.1:8000 --region us-east-1

See Getting Started for the full walkthrough, or use the platform installer scripts:

scripts/install-linux.sh   # Linux
scripts/install-macos.sh   # macOS

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.88+ (rustup update)
• PostgreSQL 14+ (see docs/local-postgres-setup.md)
• Python 3.10+ (for test suites and documentation)

Python Environment

python3 -m venv ~/venvs/extenddb-venv
source ~/venvs/extenddb-venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Authentication Modes

ExtendDB ships with builtin IAM-like authentication enabled by default. All requests must be signed with valid SigV4 credentials created via the management API.

Configuration

extenddb init generates extenddb.toml automatically. See extenddb.sample.toml for all keys, defaults, and descriptions.

Environment variable overrides use the EXTENDDB__ prefix:

export EXTENDDB__SERVER__PORT=9000
export EXTENDDB__AUTH__PROVIDER=builtin

Runtime settings (no restart required):

extenddb settings --config extenddb.toml set log_level debug

TLS

TLS is mandatory. extenddb init generates a self-signed certificate at ~/.extenddb/tls/cert.pem. The server refuses to start with TLS disabled.

To use the self-signed cert with AWS CLI and SDKs, set AWS_CA_BUNDLE:

export AWS_CA_BUNDLE=~/.extenddb/tls/cert.pem

Replace with a CA-signed certificate for production:

[server.tls]
cert_path = "/etc/extenddb/tls/cert.pem"
key_path = "/etc/extenddb/tls/key.pem"

Running in Containers

By default extenddb serve daemonizes itself, which doesn't play well with container runtimes and process supervisors that expect PID 1 to stay attached. Pass --foreground (alias --no-daemon) to keep the process in the foreground and stream logs to stderr instead of syslog:

extenddb serve --config extenddb.toml --foreground

Use this with Docker, Kubernetes, systemd Type=simple, runit, s6, or any other supervisor that captures stdout/stderr. extenddb status and extenddb stop continue to work as in daemon mode, since the PID file is still written.

Monitoring

# Health check
curl --cacert ~/.extenddb/tls/cert.pem https://127.0.0.1:8000/health

# JSON metrics (DynamoDB CloudWatch-style)
curl --cacert ~/.extenddb/tls/cert.pem https://127.0.0.1:8000/metrics

# Syslog (Linux)
journalctl -t extenddb -f

# Syslog (macOS)
log stream --predicate 'processImagePath ENDSWITH "extenddb"' --level info

Management Console

Web-based administration at https://127.0.0.1:8000/console/. Manage accounts, users, groups, roles, policies, and access keys through a browser. Accept the self-signed certificate warning on first visit.

CLI Reference

extenddb serve --config extenddb.toml          # Start server (daemon)
extenddb serve --config extenddb.toml --foreground  # Start in foreground
extenddb init --catalog-db NAME            # Initialize deployment
extenddb stop --config extenddb.toml           # Graceful shutdown
extenddb status --config extenddb.toml         # Check if running
extenddb verify --config extenddb.toml         # Validate deployment
extenddb migrate --config extenddb.toml        # Apply schema migrations
extenddb destroy --config extenddb.toml        # Tear down deployment
extenddb settings --config extenddb.toml list  # List runtime settings
extenddb manage --user admin --password <pw> <subcommand>  # IAM management

See Admin Guide for the full CLI and management API reference.

Supported Operations

Table Operations

CreateTable, DeleteTable, DescribeTable, ListTables, UpdateTable, DescribeEndpoints, DescribeLimits

Item Operations

PutItem, GetItem, DeleteItem, UpdateItem (SET, REMOVE, ADD, DELETE actions; condition expressions; all ReturnValues modes)

Query & Scan

Query, Scan (key conditions, filters, projections, pagination, index selection)

Batch & Transactions

BatchGetItem (100 keys), BatchWriteItem (25 ops), TransactGetItems (100 items), TransactWriteItems (100 ops)

Streams

ListStreams, DescribeStream, GetShardIterator, GetRecords

Other

UpdateTimeToLive, DescribeTimeToLive, TagResource, UntagResource, ListTagsOfResource, ImportTable, ExportTableToPointInTime

Project Structure

crates/
  core/             — types, validation, expressions (pure sync Rust, no async)
  engine/           — operation handlers
  storage/          — storage trait definitions
  storage-postgres/ — PostgreSQL backend
  auth/             — SigV4 verification, IAM policy engine
  server/           — HTTP server, management API, web console
  bin/              — CLI, config, daemon lifecycle
docs/
  design/           — architecture and design documents
  manuals/          — user-facing guides (PDF pipeline)
  adr/              — architecture decision records

Documentation

Build PDFs:

python3 docs/build-docs.py

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for build, test, and code-style requirements.

ExtendDB uses two lightweight processes for tracking decisions:

• ADRs record decisions that have been made.
• RFCs propose changes that affect the wire protocol, storage trait, auth model, on-disk format, public CLI, or any significant new feature or subsystem. Substantial changes go through an RFC before implementation.

Code in protected paths is reviewed via .github/CODEOWNERS.

License

Copyright 2026 ExtendDB contributors. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for the full text.

This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.