ProxySQL

Author: Ludovic HENRY ludovic.henry@qti.qualcomm.com
Date: 2026-08-14
Scope: RISC-V (riscv64/linux) support status for ProxySQL
Audience: Technical leadership, resource allocation strategy
Verification policy: Every claim is cross-referenced to a primary upstream source. Items that could not be verified against a second source are marked [NEEDS VERIFICATION].

1. Project Overview

ProxySQL is a high-performance, protocol-aware TCP proxy for MySQL and MariaDB. It performs connection multiplexing, query routing, load balancing, query caching, and firewall functions at the MySQL wire-protocol level. It is a critical piece of infrastructure in large-scale MySQL deployments where the application tier cannot manage database connection counts directly.

Governance: ProxySQL is governed entirely by ProxySQL LLC. There is no foundation affiliation (not CNCF, Apache, or Linux Foundation), no steering committee, and no community governance body. The IP assignment CLA (automated via cla-assistant.io, modeled on the ASF CLA) assigns rights to ProxySQL LLC. All decisions on architecture support, release policy, and feature acceptance are internal.

License: GPL-3.0 (community edition). Commercial Professional and Enterprise tiers exist on top.

Corporate maintainers: The contributor base is almost entirely internal to ProxySQL/SysOwn. Top committers by count: Rene Cannao (renecannao, 7,538 commits, founder), Javier Jaramago Fernandez (JavierJF, 1,170 commits, ProxySQL), Rahim Kanji (rahim-kanji, 954 commits). External contributors average under 10 commits each. Percona is an ecosystem partner but not a code contributor.

Release tiers (v3/v4):

  • Stable (v3.0.x): conservative, long-support.
  • Innovative (v3.1.x): stable plus FFTO and TSDB.
  • AI/MCP (v4.0.x): all features including AI/MCP plugin chassis.

Community culture on new ports: Architecture support decisions have been static at amd64 + arm64 since 2020. No RISC-V issue or request has been filed by any community member. The CLA requirement and single-company governance create a high barrier for community-driven port efforts: all merges require CLA signing and internal approval. There is no public roadmap item for RISC-V.

2. Port History and Upstreaming Timeline

Date Event Source
2020-10-29 ARM64 (aarch64) support introduced in v2.0.15; packages for ARM64 including repository packages and Docker Hub images shipped v2.0.15 release notes
2025-07-08 PR #5034 opened by community contributor pengjunjie2100: adds riscv64 Makefile packaging targets and documents OS versions for riscv64 compilation PR #5034
2025-07-08 Maintainer renecannao responds asking an admin to verify; no further maintainer action PR #5034 comment
2025-09-30 Last update to PR #5034; still in triage, unmerged PR #5034
2026-07-31 v4.0.10 released; binaries for amd64 and arm64 only; riscv64 absent v4.0.10 release

Key contributors on riscv64: pengjunjie2100 (external, no other activity in the repo). No ProxySQL LLC employee has committed any riscv64 work.

Upstream status: No riscv64 work is merged. The single community contribution (PR #5034) is documentation and Makefile targets only – no binary, no CI, no code. It is not upstream.

3. Upstream Support Tier

Formal tier policy: ProxySQL LLC publishes no written policy on adding new CPU architectures. Architecture expansion (amd64 -> arm64 in 2020) was driven by internal ProxySQL LLC decisions, not community requests. No equivalent decision has been made for riscv64.

Evidence of tier by architecture:

Criterion amd64 arm64 riscv64
Binary releases (RPM, DEB, tar.gz) Yes Yes No
CI runners in upstream repo ubuntu-latest, ubuntu-24.04 ubuntu-24.04-arm None
Official Docker images Yes Yes No
Distro packages (Debian/Ubuntu) Not in Debian/Ubuntu Not in Debian/Ubuntu Not in Debian/Ubuntu
Package build Makefile targets amd64-* arm64-* riscv64-* (unmerged PR only)
Documented as supported Yes Yes No

ProxySQL is not packaged in Debian, Ubuntu, or Arch Linux for any architecture. All official binaries are shipped via the upstream GitHub releases page and the proxysql.com repository. riscv64 is entirely absent.

4. Technical Architecture and RISC-V-Specific Subsystems

ProxySQL is written in C++17. The core functionality – connection pooling, query routing, query firewall, load balancing, multiplexing – is pure portable C++ with no architecture-specific SIMD or assembly in the core logic.

Architecture-specific components identified:

Component File amd64 arm64 riscv64
Coredump generation lib/proxysql_coredump.cpp Supported (coredumper lib, __i386__ or __x86_64__ guard) Partial (__ARM_ARCH_3__ covered, not arm64) Missing (excluded by arch guard, silently disabled)
Valgrind instrumentation headers include/valgrind.h (vendored) Full (PLAT_amd64_linux) Partial (PLAT_arm_linux for 32-bit ARM only) Missing (not in dispatch table; would emit #error at compile time if macros invoked)
Coroutine context switching deps/mariadb-client-library/ma_context.h Yes (ucontext dispatch) Yes (aarch64 ucontext path in upstream MariaDB Connector/C) Untested (upstream MariaDB Connector/C has riscv64 ucontext support, but ProxySQL’s patch does not test or validate it)
Packaging build targets Makefile amd64-* targets arm64-* targets riscv64-* (unmerged PR #5034 only)
SIMD intrinsics repo-wide None None None
Assembly files (.S) repo-wide None None None
JIT backend repo-wide None None None

Assessment: ProxySQL has no custom SIMD, no JIT, and no hand-tuned assembly anywhere in its own source code. Architecture sensitivity is confined to three areas: coredump capture (feature disabled on riscv64), Valgrind client headers (compile-time error risk), and context switching in the vendored MariaDB Connector/C dependency.

5. Build System, Cross-Compilation, and Toolchain

Build system: GNU Make at the top level (no CMakeLists.txt at root). Sub-Makefiles in deps/, lib/, src/. CMake is used internally by bundled dependencies (notably mariadb-connector-c).

Compiler minimum: C++17, enforced at configure time:

CPLUSPLUS := $(shell ${CC} -std=c++17 -dM -E -x c++ /dev/null 2>/dev/null | grep -F __cplusplus | egrep -o '[0-9]{6}L')
ifneq ($(CPLUSPLUS),201703L)
    $(error Compiler must support at least c++17)
endif

GCC 7+ or Clang 5+ satisfies this. Ubuntu 24.04 ships GCC 13; AlmaLinux 9 ships GCC 11. GCC 13 on riscv64 is available in Ubuntu 24.04.

Standard native riscv64 build commands (if attempted):

make build_deps -j$(nproc)
make build_lib -j$(nproc)
make build_src -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Key riscv64 build knobs:

  • NOJEMALLOC=1 make – disables bundled jemalloc (recommended for riscv64 bring-up; see jemalloc issue below).
  • JE_LG_PAGE=12 make build_deps – sets 4KB page size for jemalloc cross-compilation (Linux/riscv64 default; required only when cross-compiling from a host with a different page size).

Known build failures on riscv64:

  1. jemalloc 5.2.0 ./configure failure: ProxySQL vendors jemalloc 5.2.0. The riscv64gc toolchain triple is not recognized by the config.sub shipped in 5.2.0 – that fix landed in 5.3.1. On a GCC riscv64-linux-gnu toolchain, ./configure may fail with “Invalid configuration.” Workaround: NOJEMALLOC=1. No in-tree fix has been applied.

  2. coredumper build failure: coredumper is a Linux-only mandatory dependency (ifeq ($(UNAME_S),Linux) adds it unconditionally; no -DUSE_COREDUMPER=OFF equivalent exists in the Makefile). The coredumper library is x86/x86-64/ARM-centric upstream. If the coredumper CMake build fails on riscv64, the build_deps step fails entirely. No skip flag is documented. This is a hard build blocker absent a patch or fork.

  3. Valgrind header #error: If any translation unit exercises the vendored include/valgrind.h platform dispatch on riscv64 (which is not in the table), compilation fails with #error "Valgrind client interface not supported on this platform". This depends on which macros are exercised. [NEEDS VERIFICATION – actual compilation test on riscv64 not performed.]

QEMU usage: Not documented anywhere in the repo. No Dockerfile or CI workflow uses QEMU for riscv64.

Required apt packages for Debian/Ubuntu build:

apt-get install -y automake bzip2 cmake make g++ gcc git openssl libssl-dev \
    libgnutls28-dev libmysqlclient-dev libunwind8 libunwind-dev uuid-dev \
    libncurses-dev libicu-dev libevent-dev libtirpc-dev

Note: libunwind is listed as a dependency. On riscv64, libunwind is available but less mature than on x86-64/aarch64 – unwinding across signal boundaries can be unreliable. This does not affect normal operation.

6. Feature Coverage and Gap Analysis vs arm64 and amd64

Feature amd64 arm64 riscv64
Connection pooling and multiplexing Full Full Full (portable C++)
Query routing and firewall Full Full Full (portable C++)
MySQL/MariaDB protocol handling Full Full Full (portable C++)
PostgreSQL protocol (v4.0.x) Full Full Full (portable C++)
MCP/AI plugin chassis (v4.0.x) Full Full Blocked (protobuf upstream refusal)
Coredump capture Full Partial (ARM_ARCH_3 only, not arm64) Missing (silently disabled by arch guard)
Valgrind instrumentation Full Partial (32-bit ARM only) Missing (compile error if invoked)
NOJEMALLOC scalar allocator Available Available Recommended as workaround
Binary packages RPM, DEB, tar.gz RPM, DEB, tar.gz None
Docker images Yes Yes No
ASAN/TSAN builds Yes (with NOJEMALLOC=1) Yes (with NOJEMALLOC=1) Untested

Functional gaps:

  • Coredump capture is disabled on riscv64 by the __i386__ || __x86_64__ || __ARM_ARCH_3__ || __mips__ guard in lib/proxysql_coredump.cpp. The feature silently does not compile in rather than emitting an error – crash forensics would be unavailable.
  • The MCP/AI plugin chassis (PROXYSQL40 tier) links protobuf. Upstream protobuf maintainers state riscv64 is “not on our roadmap” (issue #17798). The -latomic link workaround (issue #14549) allows compilation via distro-packaged protobuf, but there are no upstream binary releases for riscv64.

Performance gaps:

  • No SIMD anywhere in ProxySQL’s own code. The only performance-sensitive architecture-specific code is in dependencies (jemalloc allocator, OpenSSL crypto, LZ4/zstd compression). All of those fall back to scalar paths on riscv64 with correctness intact.
  • cityhash (query fingerprinting): SSE4.2 path is skipped on riscv64; falls to portable CRC32 path. Performance impact on query routing throughput is unknown without a benchmark.

Benchmark data: Data not available: no ProxySQL riscv64 vs amd64 or arm64 throughput benchmarks were found in any public source (GitHub issues, RISE publications, web search).

NaN/floating-point issues: Data not available: no floating-point-specific riscv64 issues were found in the ProxySQL issue tracker (0 results for relevant queries).

7. CI/CD Infrastructure

riscv64 CI status: None.

Confirmed by exhaustive inspection of all 260+ files in .github/workflows/, the GH-Actions branch, and the absence of any QEMU or Docker linux/riscv64 platform flags anywhere in the repository.

Criterion amd64 arm64 riscv64
GitHub Actions runner ubuntu-latest, ubuntu-24.04 ubuntu-24.04-arm None
Self-hosted runner proxysql-ci (internal) None documented None
QEMU emulation N/A N/A None
Docker buildx multi-arch linux/amd64 linux/arm64 None
Build CI Yes Yes No
Test CI Yes No (build only via arm runner) No
Package build CI Yes (CI-package-*-ubuntu24.yml) Yes (CI-package-arm64-ubuntu24.yml) No

RISE runners: ProxySQL is not listed among projects using RISE RISC-V GitHub Actions runners. The RISE “six weeks in” post (May 2026) lists 197 repos; ProxySQL is not among them. No RISE blog post or publication mentions ProxySQL.

8. Distribution and Release Status

Upstream binaries: ProxySQL releases (v3.0.x, v3.1.x, v4.0.x) ship RPM, DEB, and tar.gz for x86_64/amd64 and aarch64/arm64 only. Zero riscv64 assets in any release from v4.0.10 back through all checked versions.

Distro packaging:

Distribution riscv64 Package Status
Debian Not packaged (tracker.debian.org/pkg/proxysql -> 404) Absent
Ubuntu 24.04 (noble) Not in Ubuntu archive Absent
Arch Linux RISC-V (archriscv.felixc.at) Not listed Absent
PyPI No proxysql package (pypi.org/pypi/proxysql/json -> 404) Absent
RISE wheel builder Not listed (no PyPI package) Absent

What a user must do to get a working binary on riscv64:

  1. Build from source on a native riscv64 host or via cross-compilation.
  2. Apply NOJEMALLOC=1 to work around the jemalloc 5.2.0 config.sub issue.
  3. Patch or skip the coredumper dependency (no upstream skip flag exists; requires Makefile modification).
  4. Resolve the coredumper CMake build on riscv64 manually.
  5. No packaged path exists.

9. Dependencies

Summary Table

Dependency Role riscv64 Build riscv64 Test riscv64 Release Blocking
OpenSSL TLS/crypto Green Green (cross-CI on GHA) Green (Debian sid, Ubuntu 24.04) No
jemalloc 5.2.0 (pinned) Memory allocator Amber (config.sub failure on riscv64gc triple) Red (no CI) N/A (source only) Yes (build blocker; workaround: NOJEMALLOC=1)
MariaDB Connector/C 3.3.8 (pinned) MySQL wire protocol Amber (lib path fix in 3.4.9, not 3.3.8) Red (no CI) N/A No (functional; install path may deviate)
re2 Query routing regex Green Green Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
SQLite3 Internal stats/admin DB Green Green Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
PCRE (v1, bundled) Query routing legacy regex Green (sljit riscv64 JIT since Jul 2022) Amber (PCRE1 CI matrix unknown) Green (Debian libpcre3-dev) No
LZ4 MySQL compressed protocol Green (QEMU CI since Oct 2023) Green Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
zstd MySQL/PostgreSQL compression Green (QEMU CI, RVV CI since Jul 2025) Green Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
libcurl Health check HTTP client Green (cross-compile CI) Amber (build-only, no test execution on riscv64) Amber (Debian sid only, not stable) No
libev Async I/O event loop Green (pure C, no arch code) Unknown (no GitHub repo; no CI data) Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
cityhash Query fingerprinting Green (SSE4.2 falls back to portable) Unknown (no active maintenance) Green No
libmicrohttpd Admin HTTP API Green (pure C) Unknown Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No
prometheus-cpp Metrics exposition Green (pure C++) Unknown Green No
coredumper (Linux-only) Crash capture Red (x86/ARM-centric; no skip flag in Makefile) Red N/A Yes (build blocker if CMake fails; no upstream bypass)
protobuf 3.21.12 (PROXYSQL40 tier) Plugin chassis serialization Amber (-latomic workaround; scalar only) Red (upstream explicitly unsupported) Amber (Debian sid only) Partial (blocks PROXYSQL40 tier; not needed for v3.x)
libunwind Stack unwinding (crash reporting) Amber (available but signal-boundary reliability lower than x86/arm64) Unknown Green (Debian/Ubuntu) No

Deep Dives

jemalloc (pinned 5.2.0): The critical blocker. ProxySQL’s deps/Makefile vendors jemalloc 5.2.0; upstream current is 5.3.1. The riscv64gc toolchain triple recognition fix landed in 5.3.1 (commit c51949e, March 2026). On a standard GCC riscv64-linux-gnu toolchain, ./configure inside the bundled jemalloc may fail. Issue #2399 (cross-build riscv64, open since March 2023) has received zero maintainer response. The NOJEMALLOC=1 workaround causes ProxySQL to link against the system jemalloc, which may be a different version. See project-reports/jemalloc.md.

coredumper: The deps/Makefile adds coredumper unconditionally for all Linux builds (ifeq ($(UNAME_S),Linux)). There is no -DUSE_COREDUMPER=OFF cmake flag and no NOCOREDUMPER=1 make variable in the ProxySQL build system. If coredumper’s CMake configuration fails on riscv64 (expected given its x86/ARM-centric history), make build_deps fails and the entire build stops. This requires a Makefile patch to add a skip path.

OpenSSL: Fully ported to riscv64 with assembly optimizations (RV64I, Zbb, Zbc, Zkn, Zvk, RVV). Green on all fronts. The musl ISA-detection bug (#28118) affects musl-linked builds only; ProxySQL targets glibc-based distros. See project-reports/openssl.md.

MariaDB Connector/C (pinned 3.3.8): Compiles via generic CMake/C path. The riscv64 lib64 install path fix landed in 3.4.9 but ProxySQL pins 3.3.8. No correctness blocker – scalar fallback works. Library install path may deviate on riscv64, requiring a manual override or patch. See project-reports/mariadb-connector-c.md.

protobuf (PROXYSQL40 tier only): Upstream maintainers explicitly state riscv64 is “not on our roadmap” (#17798). The -latomic linker workaround (#14549) allows compilation from distro-packaged protobuf. Blocks only the v4.0.x plugin chassis tier. v3.x builds are unaffected. See project-reports/protocol-buffers.md.

11. Known Bugs and Active Issues

ID Title Status Severity Notes
PR #5034 Add OS information that supports riscv64 Open, triage Documentation Adds riscv64 Makefile packaging targets; has a known bug (riscv64-almalinux not wired into riscv64-packages); stalled since 2025-09-30; no maintainer approval
N/A coredumper unconditional Linux dep N/A (no issue filed) Build blocker No skip flag in ProxySQL Makefile; fails riscv64 build if coredumper CMake fails
N/A jemalloc pinned at 5.2.0 N/A (no issue filed in ProxySQL repo) Build blocker riscv64gc triple fix requires 5.3.1+; workaround: NOJEMALLOC=1
jemalloc #2399 jemalloc cross-build riscv64 Open (zero maintainer response since Mar 2023) High (build) Upstream zero traction; affects ProxySQL’s pinned 5.2.0
protobuf #17798 riscv64 upstream refusal Closed (maintainer wontfix) High (PROXYSQL40 tier) Affects v4.0.x plugin chassis only
protobuf #14549 -latomic link failure on riscv64 Open Medium Workaround available; build succeeds with distro protobuf

Correctness bugs on riscv64: None found. Zero riscv64 correctness issues in the ProxySQL issue tracker.

12. Objections and Upstream Blockers

Organizational blockers:

  • Single-company governance (ProxySQL LLC) with CLA requirement. Any community contribution requires CLA signing and internal maintainer approval. PR #5034 (Makefile targets) has been in triage since July 2025 with no action. The founder asked an admin to review it and then went silent.
  • No public roadmap for riscv64. No RISC-V issue has ever been filed by a ProxySQL team member.
  • Architecture list has been static at amd64 + arm64 for six years (since arm64 was added in October 2020).

Technical blockers:

  1. coredumper: mandatory Linux dependency with no upstream skip flag. Requires a patch to the ProxySQL Makefile to add a conditional or bypass.
  2. jemalloc 5.2.0: pinned version does not recognize riscv64gc triple. Workaround (NOJEMALLOC=1) exists but uses system allocator rather than the tuned bundled version.
  3. protobuf (v4.0.x only): upstream maintainer refusal to support riscv64 means the PROXYSQL40 plugin chassis tier cannot be built from upstream binaries; requires distro-packaged protobuf with the -latomic workaround.

Acceptance probability: Low without direct ProxySQL LLC engagement. The CLA and single-company governance mean a community RISC-V port cannot be merged without ProxySQL LLC interest. The stalled PR #5034 (13+ months in triage with zero action) is the clearest signal of current maintainer priority.

13. Investment Analysis

RISE has no involvement with ProxySQL. No prior funded work exists to account for.

13.1 Functional Enablement

The core proxy (connection pooling, query routing, multiplexing, MySQL/MariaDB protocol) is portable C++ and will compile and run correctly on riscv64 once the build blockers are resolved. The functional work is build-system repair, not porting.

Required work:

  • Patch the ProxySQL Makefile to add a conditional skip for coredumper on non-supported architectures (NOCOREDUMPER=1 or an ifeq ($(SYS_ARCH),riscv64) guard).
  • Update jemalloc from 5.2.0 to 5.3.1 in deps/ or apply the config.sub patch from 5.3.1 to the vendored 5.2.0.
  • Fix the PR #5034 bug: wire riscv64-almalinux into riscv64-packages.
  • Validate that the vendored valgrind.h macros are not invoked on riscv64 (confirm no compile-time #error).
  • Build and smoke-test on Ubuntu 24.04 riscv64 with a live MySQL instance.

13.2 Performance Optimization

ProxySQL’s own code has no SIMD and no JIT. Performance on riscv64 relative to arm64 is determined entirely by:

  • jemalloc allocation performance (recoverable once 5.3.1 is vendored).
  • cityhash CRC32 vs SSE4.2 (portable path, performance gap unknown without benchmarks).
  • OpenSSL crypto throughput (RVV-accelerated; already upstream; not a ProxySQL work item).

No ProxySQL-specific performance optimization work is indicated until functional enablement is complete and baseline benchmarks exist.

Data not available: no riscv64 vs arm64 throughput benchmarks for ProxySQL in any public source.

13.3 CI/CD Infrastructure

Zero riscv64 CI exists. Adding CI requires either RISE runners or QEMU-based emulation. Given that the maintainer has not approved even a documentation PR in 13 months, adding CI requires ProxySQL LLC buy-in or a fork.

If ProxySQL LLC engagement is secured, CI additions mirror the existing CI-package-arm64-ubuntu24.yml structure with a riscv64 runner.

13.4 Ecosystem Enablement

ProxySQL has no package ecosystem (no plugins, no extensions, no dependent packages). Section 10 is omitted per scope rules.

13.5 Summary Table

Area Work Item Effort (person-weeks) Owner Priority
Functional Patch Makefile: add NOCOREDUMPER=1 skip flag and riscv64 guard 0.5 Contributor + ProxySQL LLC review Critical
Functional Vendor jemalloc 5.3.1 (or backport config.sub patch to 5.2.0) 1 Contributor + ProxySQL LLC review Critical
Functional Fix PR #5034 bug (wire riscv64-almalinux into riscv64-packages) 0.2 pengjunjie2100 or any contributor High
Functional Build and smoke-test on Ubuntu 24.04 riscv64 with live MySQL 1 Contributor Critical
Functional Validate valgrind.h riscv64 compile path (confirm no #error) 0.5 Contributor High
CI/CD Add riscv64 build CI (GitHub Actions + RISE runner or QEMU) 2 Contributor + ProxySQL LLC approval High
CI/CD Add riscv64 package build targets to release pipeline 1 ProxySQL LLC Medium
Functional Engage ProxySQL LLC: CLA path, roadmap inclusion, maintainer assignment 3 (BD/eng combined) Chip company BD + Contributor Critical (gates all other items)
Performance Baseline benchmark: proxysql riscv64 vs arm64 throughput and latency 2 Contributor Medium (after functional complete)

Total functional enablement (excluding BD/engagement): approximately 5-6 person-weeks of engineering, contingent on ProxySQL LLC approval to merge.

Gating dependency: ProxySQL LLC engagement is the critical path. Without maintainer buy-in, patches can be maintained as an out-of-tree fork but cannot be shipped as an official ProxySQL build. The 13-month stall on PR #5034 (a trivial documentation change) indicates that without direct relationship engagement, upstream acceptance is unlikely on any timeline relevant to a chip company investment decision.

14. Updates

No updates yet – initial report dated 2026-08-14.

15. References