Code:
PostgreSQL Installation Instructions
This document describes the installation of PostgreSQL from the source
code distribution. (If you are installing a pre-packaged distribution,
such as an RPM or Debian package, ignore this document and read the
packager's instructions instead.)
__________________________________________________________________
Short Version
./configure
gmake
su
gmake install
adduser postgres
mkdir /usr/local/pgsql/data
chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
su - postgres
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data >logfile 2>&1 &
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb test
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql test
The long version is the rest of this document.
__________________________________________________________________
Requirements
In general, a modern Unix-compatible platform should be able to run
PostgreSQL. The platforms that had received specific testing at the
time of release are listed in the Section called Supported Platforms
below. In the "doc" subdirectory of the distribution there are several
platform-specific FAQ documents you might wish to consult if you are
having trouble.
The following software packages are required for building PostgreSQL:
* GNU make is required; other make programs will *not* work. GNU make
is often installed under the name "gmake"; this document will
always refer to it by that name. (On some systems GNU make is the
default tool with the name "make".) To test for GNU make enter
gmake --version
It is recommended to use version 3.76.1 or later.
* You need an ISO/ANSI C compiler. Recent versions of GCC are
recommendable, but PostgreSQL is known to build with a wide variety
of compilers from different vendors.
* tar is required to unpack the source distribution in the first
place, in addition to either gzip or bzip2.
* The GNU Readline library (for simple line editing and command
history retrieval) is used by default. If you don't want to use it
then you must specify the "--without-readline" option for
"configure". As an alternative, you can often use the BSD-licensed
"libedit" library, originally developed on NetBSD. The "libedit"
library is GNU Readline-compatible and is used if "libreadline" is
not found, or if "--with-libedit-preferred" is used as an option to
"configure". If you are using a package-based Linux distribution,
be aware that you need both the readline and readline-devel
packages, if those are separate in your distribution.
* The zlib compression library will be used by default. If you don't
want to use it then you must specify the "--without-zlib" option
for "configure". Using this option disables support for compressed
archives in pg_dump and pg_restore.
* Additional software is needed to build PostgreSQL on Windows. You
can build PostgreSQL for NT-based versions of Windows (like Windows
XP and 2003) using MinGW; see "doc/FAQ_MINGW" for details. You can
also build PostgreSQL using Cygwin; see "doc/FAQ_CYGWIN". A
Cygwin-based build will work on older versions of Windows, but if
you have a choice, we recommend the MinGW approach. While these are
the only tool sets recommended for a complete build, it is possible
to build just the C client library (libpq) and the interactive
terminal (psql) using other Windows tool sets. For details of that
see the documentation chapter "Client-Only Installation on Windows"
.
The following packages are optional. They are not required in the
default configuration, but they are needed when certain build options
are enabled, as explained below.
* To build the server programming language PL/Perl you need a full
Perl installation, including the "libperl" library and the header
files. Since PL/Perl will be a shared library, the "libperl"
library must be a shared library also on most platforms. This
appears to be the default in recent Perl versions, but it was not
in earlier versions, and in any case it is the choice of whomever
installed Perl at your site.
If you don't have the shared library but you need one, a message
like this will appear during the build to point out this fact:
*** Cannot build PL/Perl because libperl is not a shared library.
*** You might have to rebuild your Perl installation. Refer to
*** the documentation for details.
(If you don't follow the on-screen output you will merely notice
that the PL/Perl library object, "plperl.so" or similar, will not
be installed.) If you see this, you will have to rebuild and
install Perl manually to be able to build PL/Perl. During the
configuration process for Perl, request a shared library.
* To build the PL/Python server programming language, you need a
Python installation with the header files and the distutils module.
The distutils module is included by default with Python 1.6 and
later; users of earlier versions of Python will need to install it.
Since PL/Python will be a shared library, the "libpython" library
must be a shared library also on most platforms. This is not the
case in a default Python installation. If after building and
installing you have a file called "plpython.so" (possibly a
different extension), then everything went well. Otherwise you
should have seen a notice like this flying by:
*** Cannot build PL/Python because libpython is not a shared library.
*** You might have to rebuild your Python installation. Refer to
*** the documentation for details.
That means you have to rebuild (part of) your Python installation
to supply this shared library.
If you have problems, run Python 2.3 or later's configure using the
--enable-shared flag. On some operating systems you don't have to
build a shared library, but you will have to convince the
PostgreSQL build system of this. Consult the "Makefile" in the
"src/pl/plpython" directory for details.
* If you want to build the PL/Tcl procedural language, you of course
need a Tcl installation.
* To enable Native Language Support (NLS), that is, the ability to
display a program's messages in a language other than English, you
need an implementation of the Gettext API. Some operating systems
have this built-in (e.g., Linux, NetBSD, Solaris), for other
systems you can download an add-on package from
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/bsd-gettext/. If you are
using the Gettext implementation in the GNU C library then you will
additionally need the GNU Gettext package for some utility
programs. For any of the other implementations you will not need
it.
* Kerberos, OpenSSL, OpenLDAP, and/or PAM, if you want to support
authentication or encryption using these services.
If you are building from a CVS tree instead of using a released source
package, or if you want to do development, you also need the following
packages:
* GNU Flex and Bison are needed to build a CVS checkout or if you
changed the actual scanner and parser definition files. If you need
them, be sure to get Flex 2.5.4 or later and Bison 1.875 or later.
Other yacc programs can sometimes be used, but doing so requires
extra effort and is not recommended. Other lex programs will
definitely not work.
If you need to get a GNU package, you can find it at your local GNU
mirror site (see http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html for a list) or at
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/.
Also check that you have sufficient disk space. You will need about 65
MB for the source tree during compilation and about 15 MB for the
installation directory. An empty database cluster takes about 25 MB,
databases take about five times the amount of space that a flat text
file with the same data would take. If you are going to run the
regression tests you will temporarily need up to an extra 90 MB. Use
the "df" command to check free disk space.
__________________________________________________________________
If You Are Upgrading
The internal data storage format changes with new releases of
PostgreSQL. Therefore, if you are upgrading an existing installation
that does not have a version number "8.2.x", you must back up and
restore your data as shown here. These instructions assume that your
existing installation is under the "/usr/local/pgsql" directory, and
that the data area is in "/usr/local/pgsql/data". Substitute your paths
appropriately.
1. Make sure that your database is not updated during or after the
backup. This does not affect the integrity of the backup, but the
changed data would of course not be included. If necessary, edit
the permissions in the file "/usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf" (or
equivalent) to disallow access from everyone except you.
2. To back up your database installation, type:
pg_dumpall > outputfile
If you need to preserve OIDs (such as when using them as foreign
keys), then use the "-o" option when running pg_dumpall.
To make the backup, you can use the pg_dumpall command from the
version you are currently running. For best results, however, try
to use the pg_dumpall command from PostgreSQL 8.2.4, since this
version contains bug fixes and improvements over older versions.
While this advice might seem idiosyncratic since you haven't
installed the new version yet, it is advisable to follow it if you
plan to install the new version in parallel with the old version.
In that case you can complete the installation normally and
transfer the data later. This will also decrease the downtime.
3. If you are installing the new version at the same location as the
old one then shut down the old server, at the latest before you
install the new files:
pg_ctl stop
On systems that have PostgreSQL started at boot time, there is
probably a start-up file that will accomplish the same thing. For
example, on a Red Hat Linux system one might find that
/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql stop
works.
4. If you are installing in the same place as the old version then it
is also a good idea to move the old installation out of the way, in
case you have trouble and need to revert to it. Use a command like
this:
mv /usr/local/pgsql /usr/local/pgsql.old
After you have installed PostgreSQL 8.2.4, create a new database
directory and start the new server. Remember that you must execute
these commands while logged in to the special database user account
(which you already have if you are upgrading).
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
Finally, restore your data with
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql -d postgres -f outputfile
using the *new* psql.
Further discussion appears in the documentation, which you are
encouraged to read in any case.
__________________________________________________________________
Installation Procedure
1. Configuration
The first step of the installation procedure is to configure the
source tree for your system and choose the options you would like.
This is done by running the "configure" script. For a default
installation simply enter
./configure
This script will run a number of tests to guess values for various
system dependent variables and detect some quirks of your operating
system, and finally will create several files in the build tree to
record what it found. (You can also run "configure" in a directory
outside the source tree if you want to keep the build directory
separate.)
The default configuration will build the server and utilities, as
well as all client applications and interfaces that require only a
C compiler. All files will be installed under "/usr/local/pgsql" by
default.
You can customize the build and installation process by supplying
one or more of the following command line options to "configure":
--prefix=PREFIX
Install all files under the directory "PREFIX" instead of
"/usr/local/pgsql". The actual files will be installed
into various subdirectories; no files will ever be
installed directly into the "PREFIX" directory.
If you have special needs, you can also customize the
individual subdirectories with the following options.
However, if you leave these with their defaults, the
installation will be relocatable, meaning you can move the
directory after installation. (The man and doc locations
are not affected by this.)
For relocatable installs, you might want to use
"configure"'s --disable-rpath option. Also, you will need
to tell the operating system how to find the shared
libraries.
--exec-prefix=EXEC-PREFIX
You can install architecture-dependent files under a
different prefix, "EXEC-PREFIX", than what "PREFIX" was
set to. This can be useful to share
architecture-independent files between hosts. If you omit
this, then "EXEC-PREFIX" is set equal to "PREFIX" and both
architecture-dependent and independent files will be
installed under the same tree, which is probably what you
want.
--bindir=DIRECTORY
Specifies the directory for executable programs. The
default is "EXEC-PREFIX/bin", which normally means
"/usr/local/pgsql/bin".
--datadir=DIRECTORY
Sets the directory for read-only data files used by the
installed programs. The default is "PREFIX/share". Note
that this has nothing to do with where your database files
will be placed.
--sysconfdir=DIRECTORY
The directory for various configuration files,
"PREFIX/etc" by default.
--libdir=DIRECTORY
The location to install libraries and dynamically loadable
modules. The default is "EXEC-PREFIX/lib".
--includedir=DIRECTORY
The directory for installing C and C++ header files. The
default is "PREFIX/include".
--mandir=DIRECTORY
The man pages that come with PostgreSQL will be installed
under this directory, in their respective "manx"
subdirectories. The default is "PREFIX/man".
--with-docdir=DIRECTORY, --without-docdir
Documentation files, except "man" pages, will be installed
into this directory. The default is "PREFIX/doc". If the
option "--without-docdir" is specified, the documentation
will not be installed by "make install". This is intended
for packaging scripts that have special methods for
installing documentation.
Note: Care has been taken to make it possible to install PostgreSQL
into shared installation locations (such as "/usr/local/include")
without interfering with the namespace of the rest of the system.
First, the string "/postgresql" is automatically appended to
datadir, sysconfdir, and docdir, unless the fully expanded directory
name already contains the string "postgres" or "pgsql". For example,
if you choose "/usr/local" as prefix, the documentation will be
installed in "/usr/local/doc/postgresql", but if the prefix is
"/opt/postgres", then it will be in "/opt/postgres/doc". The public
C header files of the client interfaces are installed into
includedir and are namespace-clean. The internal header files and
the server header files are installed into private directories under
includedir. See the documentation of each interface for information
about how to get at the its header files. Finally, a private
subdirectory will also be created, if appropriate, under libdir for
dynamically loadable modules.
--with-includes=DIRECTORIES
"DIRECTORIES" is a colon-separated list of directories
that will be added to the list the compiler searches for
header files. If you have optional packages (such as GNU
Readline) installed in a non-standard location, you have
to use this option and probably also the corresponding
"--with-libraries" option.
Example:
--with-includes=/opt/gnu/include:/usr/sup/include.
--with-libraries=DIRECTORIES
"DIRECTORIES" is a colon-separated list of directories to
search for libraries. You will probably have to use this
option (and the corresponding "--with-includes" option) if
you have packages installed in non-standard locations.
Example: --with-libraries=/opt/gnu/lib:/usr/sup/lib.
--enable-nls[=LANGUAGES]
Enables Native Language Support (NLS), that is, the
ability to display a program's messages in a language
other than English. "LANGUAGES" is a space-separated list
of codes of the languages that you want supported, for
example --enable-nls='de fr'. (The intersection between
your list and the set of actually provided translations
will be computed automatically.) If you do not specify a
list, then all available translations are installed.
To use this option, you will need an implementation of the
Gettext API; see above.
--with-pgport=NUMBER
Set "NUMBER" as the default port number for server and
clients. The default is 5432. The port can always be
changed later on, but if you specify it here then both
server and clients will have the same default compiled in,
which can be very convenient. Usually the only good reason
to select a non-default value is if you intend to run
multiple PostgreSQL servers on the same machine.
--with-perl
Build the PL/Perl server-side language.
--with-python
Build the PL/Python server-side language.
--with-tcl
Build the PL/Tcl server-side language.
--with-tclconfig=DIRECTORY
Tcl installs the file "tclConfig.sh", which contains
configuration information needed to build modules
interfacing to Tcl. This file is normally found
automatically at a well-known location, but if you want to
use a different version of Tcl you can specify the
directory in which to look for it.
--with-krb5
Build with support for Kerberos 5 authentication. On many
systems, the Kerberos system is not installed in a
location that is searched by default (e.g.,
"/usr/include", "/usr/lib"), so you must use the options
"--with-includes" and "--with-libraries" in addition to
this option. "configure" will check for the required
header files and libraries to make sure that your Kerberos
installation is sufficient before proceeding.
--with-krb-srvnam=NAME
The default name of the Kerberos service principal.
postgres is the default. There's usually no reason to
change this.
--with-openssl
Build with support for SSL (encrypted) connections. This
requires the OpenSSL package to be installed. "configure"
will check for the required header files and libraries to
make sure that your OpenSSL installation is sufficient
before proceeding.
--with-pam
Build with PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) support.
--with-ldap
Build with LDAP support for authentication and connection
parameter lookup (see the documentation about client
authentication and libpq for more information). On Unix,
this requires the OpenLDAP package to be installed.
"configure" will check for the required header files and
libraries to make sure that your OpenLDAP installation is
sufficient before proceeding. On Windows, the default
WinLDAP library is used.
--without-readline
Prevents use of the Readline library (and libedit as
well). This option disables command-line editing and
history in psql, so it is not recommended.
--with-libedit-preferred
Favors the use of the BSD-licensed libedit library rather
than GPL-licensed Readline. This option is significant
only if you have both libraries installed; the default in
that case is to use Readline.
--with-bonjour
Build with Bonjour support. This requires Bonjour support
in your operating system. Recommended on Mac OS X.
--enable-integer-datetimes
Use 64-bit integer storage for datetimes and intervals,
rather than the default floating-point storage. This
reduces the range of representable values but guarantees
microsecond precision across the full range (see the
documentation about datetime datatypes for more
information). Note also that the integer datetimes code is
newer than the floating-point code, and we still find bugs
in it from time to time.
--disable-spinlocks
Allow the build to succeed even if PostgreSQL has no CPU
spinlock support for the platform. The lack of spinlock
support will result in poor performance; therefore, this
option should only be used if the build aborts and informs
you that the platform lacks spinlock support. If this
option is required to build PostgreSQL on your platform,
please report the problem to the PostgreSQL developers.
--enable-thread-safety
Make the client libraries thread-safe. This allows
concurrent threads in libpq and ECPG programs to safely
control their private connection handles. This option
requires adequate threading support in your operating
system.
--without-zlib
Prevents use of the Zlib library. This disables support
for compressed archives in pg_dump and pg_restore. This
option is only intended for those rare systems where this
library is not available.
--enable-debug
Compiles all programs and libraries with debugging
symbols. This means that you can run the programs through
a debugger to analyze problems. This enlarges the size of
the installed executables considerably, and on non-GCC
compilers it usually also disables compiler optimization,
causing slowdowns. However, having the symbols available
is extremely helpful for dealing with any problems that
may arise. Currently, this option is recommended for
production installations only if you use GCC. But you
should always have it on if you are doing development work
or running a beta version.
--enable-cassert
Enables assertion checks in the server, which test for
many "can't happen" conditions. This is invaluable for
code development purposes, but the tests slow things down
a little. Also, having the tests turned on won't
necessarily enhance the stability of your server! The
assertion checks are not categorized for severity, and so
what might be a relatively harmless bug will still lead to
server restarts if it triggers an assertion failure.
Currently, this option is not recommended for production
use, but you should have it on for development work or
when running a beta version.
--enable-depend
Enables automatic dependency tracking. With this option,
the makefiles are set up so that all affected object files
will be rebuilt when any header file is changed. This is
useful if you are doing development work, but is just
wasted overhead if you intend only to compile once and
install. At present, this option will work only if you use
GCC.
--enable-dtrace
Compiles with support for the dynamic tracing tool DTrace.
Operating system support for DTrace is currently only
available in Solaris.
To point to the "dtrace" program, the environment variable
DTRACE can be set. This will often be necessary because
"dtrace" is typically installed under "/usr/sbin", which
might not be in the path. Additional command-line options
for the "dtrace" program can be specified in the
environment variable DTRACEFLAGS.
To include DTrace support in a 64-bit binary, specify
DTRACEFLAGS="-64" to configure. For example, using the GCC
compiler:
./configure CC='gcc -m64' --enable-dtrace DTRACEFLAGS='-64' ...
Using Sun's compiler:
./configure CC='/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -xtarget=native64' --enable-dtrace DTRACEFL
AGS='-64' ...
If you prefer a C compiler different from the one "configure"
picks, you can set the environment variable CC to the program of
your choice. By default, "configure" will pick "gcc" if available,
else the platform's default (usually "cc"). Similarly, you can
override the default compiler flags if needed with the CFLAGS
variable.
You can specify environment variables on the "configure" command
line, for example:
./configure CC=/opt/bin/gcc CFLAGS='-O2 -pipe'
Here is a list of the significant variables that can be set in this
manner:
CC
C compiler
CFLAGS
options to pass to the C compiler
CPP
C preprocessor
CPPFLAGS
options to pass to the C preprocessor
DTRACE
location of the "dtrace" program
DTRACEFLAGS
options to pass to the "dtrace" program
LDFLAGS
options to pass to the link editor
LDFLAGS_SL
linker options for shared library linking
MSGFMT
"msgfmt" program for native language support
PERL
Full path to the Perl interpreter. This will be used to
determine the dependencies for building PL/Perl.
PYTHON
Full path to the Python interpreter. This will be used to
determine the dependencies for building PL/Python.
TCLSH
Full path to the Tcl interpreter. This wil be used to
determine the dependencies for building PL/Tcl.
YACC
Yacc program (bison -y if using Bison)
2. Build
To start the build, type
gmake
(Remember to use GNU make.) The build may take anywhere from 5
minutes to half an hour depending on your hardware. The last line
displayed should be
All of PostgreSQL is successfully made. Ready to install.
3. Regression Tests
If you want to test the newly built server before you install it,
you can run the regression tests at this point. The regression
tests are a test suite to verify that PostgreSQL runs on your
machine in the way the developers expected it to. Type
gmake check
(This won't work as root; do it as an unprivileged user.) The file
"src/test/regress/README" and the documentation contain detailed
information about interpreting the test results. You can repeat
this test at any later time by issuing the same command.
4. Installing The Files
Note: If you are upgrading an existing system and are going to
install the new files over the old ones, be sure to back up your
data and shut down the old server before proceeding, as explained in
the Section called If You Are Upgrading above.
To install PostgreSQL enter
gmake install
This will install files into the directories that were specified in
step 1. Make sure that you have appropriate permissions to write
into that area. Normally you need to do this step as root.
Alternatively, you could create the target directories in advance
and arrange for appropriate permissions to be granted.
You can use gmake install-strip instead of gmake install to strip
the executable files and libraries as they are installed. This will
save some space. If you built with debugging support, stripping
will effectively remove the debugging support, so it should only be
done if debugging is no longer needed. install-strip tries to do a
reasonable job saving space, but it does not have perfect knowledge
of how to strip every unneeded byte from an executable file, so if
you want to save all the disk space you possibly can, you will have
to do manual work.
The standard installation provides all the header files needed for
client application development as well as for server-side program
development, such as custom functions or data types written in C.
(Prior to PostgreSQL 8.0, a separate gmake install-all-headers
command was needed for the latter, but this step has been folded
into the standard install.)
Client-only installation: If you want to install only the client
applications and interface libraries, then you can use these
commands:
gmake -C src/bin install
gmake -C src/include install
gmake -C src/interfaces install
gmake -C doc install
"src/bin" has a few binaries for server-only use, but they are
small.
Registering eventlog on Windows: To register a Windows eventlog library
with the operating system, issue this command after installation:
regsvr32 pgsql_library_directory/pgevent.dll
This creates registry entries used by the event viewer.
Uninstallation: To undo the installation use the command "gmake
uninstall". However, this will not remove any created directories.
Cleaning: After the installation you can make room by removing the
built files from the source tree with the command "gmake clean". This
will preserve the files made by the "configure" program, so that you
can rebuild everything with "gmake" later on. To reset the source tree
to the state in which it was distributed, use "gmake distclean". If you
are going to build for several platforms within the same source tree
you must do this and re-configure for each build. (Alternatively, use a
separate build tree for each platform, so that the source tree remains
unmodified.)
If you perform a build and then discover that your "configure" options
were wrong, or if you change anything that "configure" investigates
(for example, software upgrades), then it's a good idea to do "gmake
distclean" before reconfiguring and rebuilding. Without this, your
changes in configuration choices may not propagate everywhere they need
to.
__________________________________________________________________
Post-Installation Setup
Shared Libraries
On some systems that have shared libraries (which most systems do) you
need to tell your system how to find the newly installed shared
libraries. The systems on which this is *not* necessary include BSD/OS,
FreeBSD, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Tru64 UNIX (formerly
Digital UNIX), and Solaris.
The method to set the shared library search path varies between
platforms, but the most widely usable method is to set the environment
variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH like so: In Bourne shells ("sh", "ksh",
"bash", "zsh")
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
or in "csh" or "tcsh"
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/pgsql/lib
Replace /usr/local/pgsql/lib with whatever you set "--libdir" to in
step 1. You should put these commands into a shell start-up file such
as "/etc/profile" or "~/.bash_profile". Some good information about the
caveats associated with this method can be found at
http://www.visi.com/~barr/ldpath.html.
On some systems it might be preferable to set the environment variable
LD_RUN_PATH *before* building.
On Cygwin, put the library directory in the PATH or move the ".dll"
files into the "bin" directory.
If in doubt, refer to the manual pages of your system (perhaps "ld.so"
or "rld"). If you later on get a message like
psql: error in loading shared libraries
libpq.so.2.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
then this step was necessary. Simply take care of it then.
If you are on BSD/OS, Linux, or SunOS 4 and you have root access you
can run
/sbin/ldconfig /usr/local/pgsql/lib
(or equivalent directory) after installation to enable the run-time
linker to find the shared libraries faster. Refer to the manual page of
"ldconfig" for more information. On FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD the
command is
/sbin/ldconfig -m /usr/local/pgsql/lib
instead. Other systems are not known to have an equivalent command.
__________________________________________________________________
Environment Variables
If you installed into "/usr/local/pgsql" or some other location that is
not searched for programs by default, you should add
"/usr/local/pgsql/bin" (or whatever you set "--bindir" to in step 1)
into your PATH. Strictly speaking, this is not necessary, but it will
make the use of PostgreSQL much more convenient.
To do this, add the following to your shell start-up file, such as
"~/.bash_profile" (or "/etc/profile", if you want it to affect every
user):
PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/bin:$PATH
export PATH
If you are using "csh" or "tcsh", then use this command:
set path = ( /usr/local/pgsql/bin $path )
To enable your system to find the man documentation, you need to add
lines like the following to a shell start-up file unless you installed
into a location that is searched by default.
MANPATH=/usr/local/pgsql/man:$MANPATH
export MANPATH
The environment variables PGHOST and PGPORT specify to client
applications the host and port of the database server, overriding the
compiled-in defaults. If you are going to run client applications
remotely then it is convenient if every user that plans to use the
database sets PGHOST. This is not required, however: the settings can
be communicated via command line options to most client programs.
__________________________________________________________________
Getting Started
The following is a quick summary of how to get PostgreSQL up and
running once installed. The main documentation contains more
information.
1. Create a user account for the PostgreSQL server. This is the user
the server will run as. For production use you should create a
separate, unprivileged account ("postgres" is commonly used). If
you do not have root access or just want to play around, your own
user account is enough, but running the server as root is a
security risk and will not work.
adduser postgres
2. Create a database installation with the "initdb" command. To run
"initdb" you must be logged in to your PostgreSQL server account.
It will not work as root.
root# mkdir /usr/local/pgsql/data
root# chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
root# su - postgres
postgres$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
The "-D" option specifies the location where the data will be
stored. You can use any path you want, it does not have to be under
the installation directory. Just make sure that the server account
can write to the directory (or create it, if it doesn't already
exist) before starting "initdb", as illustrated here.
3. The previous step should have told you how to start up the database
server. Do so now. The command should look something like
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
This will start the server in the foreground. To put the server in
the background use something like
nohup /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data \
</dev/null >>server.log 2>&1 </dev/null &
To stop a server running in the background you can type
kill `cat /usr/local/pgsql/data/postmaster.pid`
4. Create a database:
createdb testdb
Then enter
psql testdb
to connect to that database. At the prompt you can enter SQL
commands and start experimenting.
__________________________________________________________________
What Now?
* The PostgreSQL distribution contains a comprehensive documentation
set, which you should read sometime. After installation, the
documentation can be accessed by pointing your browser to
"/usr/local/pgsql/doc/html/index.html", unless you changed the
installation directories.
The first few chapters of the main documentation are the Tutorial,
which should be your first reading if you are completely new to SQL
databases. If you are familiar with database concepts then you want
to proceed with part on server administration, which contains
information about how to set up the database server, database
users, and authentication.
* Usually, you will want to modify your computer so that it will
automatically start the database server whenever it boots. Some
suggestions for this are in the documentation.
* Run the regression tests against the installed server (using "gmake
installcheck"). If you didn't run the tests before installation,
you should definitely do it now. This is also explained in the
documentation.
* By default, PostgreSQL is configured to run on minimal hardware.
This allows it to start up with almost any hardware configuration.
The default configuration is, however, not designed for optimum
performance. To achieve optimum performance, several server
parameters must be adjusted, the two most common being
shared_buffers and work_mem. Other parameters mentioned in the
documentation also affect performance.
__________________________________________________________________
Supported Platforms
PostgreSQL has been verified by the developer community to work on the
platforms listed below. A supported platform generally means that
PostgreSQL builds and installs according to these instructions and that
the regression tests pass. "Build farm" entries refer to active test
machines in the PostgreSQL Build Farm. Platform entries that show an
older version of PostgreSQL are those that did not receive explicit
testing at the time of release of version 8.2 but that we still expect
to work.
Note: If you are having problems with the installation on a
supported platform, please write to <
> or
<>, not to the people listed here.
OS Processor Version Reported Remarks
AIX PowerPC 8.2.0 Build farm grebe (5.3, gcc 4.0.1); kookaburra (5.2,
cc 6.0); asp (5.2, gcc 3.3.2) see doc/FAQ_AIX, particularly if using
AIX 5.3 ML3
AIX RS6000 8.0.0 Hans-Jürgen Schönig (<>), 2004-12-06 see
doc/FAQ_AIX
BSD/OS x86 8.1.0 Bruce Momjian (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-26
4.3.1
Debian GNU/Linux Alpha 8.2.0 Build farm hare (3.1, gcc 3.3.4)
Debian GNU/Linux AMD64 8.2.0 Build farm shad (4.0, gcc 4.1.2); kite
(3.1, gcc 4.0); panda (sid, gcc 3.3.5)
Debian GNU/Linux ARM 8.2.0 Build farm penguin (3.1, gcc 3.3.4)
Debian GNU/Linux Athlon XP 8.2.0 Build farm rook (3.1, gcc 3.3.5)
Debian GNU/Linux IA64 8.2.0 Build farm dugong (unstable, icc 9.1.045)
Debian GNU/Linux m68k 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (<>), 2004-12-09
sid
Debian GNU/Linux MIPS 8.2.0 Build farm otter (3.1, gcc 3.3.4)
Debian GNU/Linux MIPSEL 8.2.0 Build farm lionfish (3.1, gcc 3.3.4);
corgi (3.1, gcc 3.3.4)
Debian GNU/Linux PA-RISC 8.2.0 Build farm manatee (3.1, gcc 4.0.1);
kingfisher (3.1, gcc 3.3.5)
Debian GNU/Linux PowerPC 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (<>),
2004-12-15 sid
Debian GNU/Linux Sparc 8.1.0 Build farm dormouse (3.1, gcc 3.2.5;
64-bit)
Debian GNU/Linux x86 8.2.0 Build farm wildebeest (3.1, gcc 3.3.5)
Fedora Linux AMD64 8.2.0 Build farm impala (FC6, gcc 4.1.1); bustard
(FC5, gcc 4.1.0); wasp (FC5, gcc 4.1.0); viper (FC3, gcc 3.4.4)
Fedora Linux PowerPC 8.2.0 Build farm sponge (FC5, gcc 4.1.0)
Fedora Linux x86 8.2.0 Build farm agouti (FC5, gcc 4.1.1); thrush (FC1,
gcc 3.3.2)
FreeBSD AMD64 8.2.0 Build farm platypus (6, gcc 3.4.4); dove (6.1, gcc
3.4.4); ermine (6.1, gcc 3.4.4)
FreeBSD x86 8.2.0 Build farm minnow (6.1, gcc 3.4.4); echidna (6, gcc
3.4.2); herring (6, Intel cc 7.1)
Gentoo Linux AMD64 8.1.0 Build farm caribou (2.6.9, gcc 3.3.5)
Gentoo Linux IA64 8.2.0 Build farm stoat (2.6, gcc 3.3)
Gentoo Linux PowerPC 64 8.2.0 Build farm cobra (1.4.16, gcc 3.4.3)
Gentoo Linux x86 8.2.0 Build farm mongoose (1.6.14, icc 9.0.032)
HP-UX IA64 8.2.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2006-10-23 11.23, gcc
and cc; see doc/FAQ_HPUX
HP-UX PA-RISC 8.2.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2006-10-23 10.20
and 11.23, gcc and cc; see doc/FAQ_HPUX
IRIX MIPS 8.1.0 Kenneth Marshall (<.edu>), 2005-11-04 6.5,
cc only
Kubuntu Linux AMD64 8.2.0 Build farm rosella (5.10 "Breezy", gcc 4.0)
Mac OS X PowerPC 8.2.0 Build farm tuna (10.4.2, gcc 4.0)
Mac OS X x86 8.2.0 Build farm jackal (10.4.8, gcc 4.0.1)
Mandriva Linux x86 8.2.0 Build farm gopher (Mandriva 2006, gcc 4.0.1)
NetBSD m68k 8.2.0 Build farm osprey (2.0, gcc 3.3.3)
NetBSD x86 8.2.0 Build farm gazelle (3.0, gcc 3.3.3); canary (1.6, gcc
2.95.3)
OpenBSD AMD64 8.2.0 Build farm zebra (4.0, gcc 3.3.5)
OpenBSD Sparc 8.0.0 Chris Mair (<>), 2005-01-10 3.3
OpenBSD Sparc64 8.2.0 Build farm spoonbill (3.9, gcc 3.3.5)
OpenBSD x86 8.2.0 Build farm emu (4.0, gcc 3.3.5); guppy (3.8, gcc
3.3.5) minor ecpg test failure on 3.8
Red Hat Linux AMD64 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23
RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux IA64 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23
RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux PowerPC 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23
RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux PowerPC 64 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>),
2005-10-23 RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux S/390 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23
RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux S/390x 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23
RHEL 4
Red Hat Linux x86 8.1.0 Tom Lane (<.pa.us>), 2005-10-23 RHEL
4
Slackware Linux x86 8.1.0 Sergey Koposov (<.ru>),
2005-10-24 10.0
Solaris Sparc 8.2.0 Build farm hyena (Solaris 10, gcc 3.4.3) see
doc/FAQ_Solaris
Solaris x86 8.2.0 Build farm dragonfly (Solaris 9, gcc 3.2.3); kudu
(Solaris 9, cc 5.3) see doc/FAQ_Solaris
SUSE Linux AMD64 8.1.0 Josh Berkus (<>), 2005-10-23
SLES 9.3
SUSE Linux IA64 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03 SLES 9
SUSE Linux PowerPC 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03 SLES
9
SUSE Linux PowerPC 64 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03
SLES 9
SUSE Linux S/390 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03 SLES 9
SUSE Linux S/390x 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03 SLES 9
SUSE Linux x86 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (<>), 2005-01-03 9.0, 9.1,
9.2, SLES 9
Tru64 UNIX Alpha 8.1.0 Honda Shigehiro (<.jp>),
2005-11-01 5.0, cc 6.1-011
Ubuntu Linux x86 8.2.0 Build farm caracara (6.06, gcc 4.0.3)
UnixWare x86 8.2.0 Build farm warthog (7.1.4, cc 4.2) see doc/FAQ_SCO
Windows x86 8.2.0 Build farm yak (XP SP2, gcc 3.4.2); bandicoot
(Windows 2000 Pro, gcc 3.4.2); snake (Windows Server 2003 SP1, gcc
3.4.2); trout (Windows Server 2000 SP4, gcc 3.4.2) see doc/FAQ_MINGW
Windows with Cygwin x86 8.2.0 Build farm eel (W2K Server SP4, gcc
3.4.4) see doc/FAQ_CYGWIN
Yellow Dog Linux PowerPC 8.1.0 Build farm carp (4.0, gcc 3.3.3)
Unsupported Platforms: The following platforms used to work but have
not been tested recently. We include these here to let you know that
these platforms *could* be supported if given some attention.
OS Processor Version Reported Remarks
Debian GNU/Linux S/390 7.4 Noèl Köthe (<>), 2003-10-25
FreeBSD Alpha 7.4 Peter Eisentraut (<>), 2003-10-25 4.8
Linux PlayStation 2 8.0.0 Chris Mair (<>), 2005-01-09
requires --disable-spinlocks (works, but very slow)
NetBSD Alpha 7.2 Thomas Thai (<>), 2001-11-20 1.5W
NetBSD arm32 7.4 Patrick Welche (<.ac.uk>), 2003-11-12
1.6ZE/acorn32
NetBSD MIPS 7.2.1 Warwick Hunter (<>), 2002-06-13 1.5.3
NetBSD PowerPC 7.2 Bill Studenmund (<>), 2001-11-28
1.5
NetBSD Sparc 7.4.1 Peter Eisentraut (<>), 2003-11-26
1.6.1, 32-bit
NetBSD VAX 7.1 Tom I. Helbekkmo (<>), 2001-03-30 1.5
SCO OpenServer x86 7.3.1 Shibashish Satpathy (<>),
2002-12-11 5.0.4, gcc; see also doc/FAQ_SCO
SunOS 4 Sparc 7.2 Tatsuo Ishii (<.jp>), 2001-12-04
