PgBouncer provides an administration console to view pool status or control the service. For now, we will focus on viewing the list of server connections that PgBouncer maintains. These connections are held for distribution to database clients as necessary, and they can tell us much more about the health of the pool. Let's explore the PgBouncer console a bit.
We need to know how to connect to PgBouncer instead of PostgreSQL, so check the Connecting to PgBouncer recipe for a refresher. In this section, we will use something known as a pseudo-database. When in use, PgBouncer reserves the database name pgbouncer for its own internal purposes to access its administration console. This database does not actually exist, but it will still connect from the perspective of our PostgreSQL client.
In the highly unlikely event that the pgbouncer database actually exists within your PostgreSQL installation, we recommend renaming it to avoid confusion.