installation This 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 and read the packager's instructions instead.) ./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/postmaster -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 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 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: make 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. gzip is needed to unpack the distribution in the first place. readline The GNU Readline library (for comfortable line editing and command history retrieval) will be used by default. If you don't want to use it then you must specify the --without-readline option for configure. (On NetBSD, the libedit library is Readline-compatible and is used if libreadline is not found.) 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. installation on Windows 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 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 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 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 . 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, 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: flex bison yacc 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 for a list) or at . 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. The PostgreSQL &version; sources can be obtained by anonymous FTP from . Other download options can be found on our website: . After you have obtained the file, unpack it: gunzip postgresql-&version;.tar.gz tar xf postgresql-&version;.tar This will create a directory postgresql-&version; under the current directory with the PostgreSQL sources. Change into that directory for the rest of the installation procedure. ]]> 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 &majorversion;.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. 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. pg_dumpall use during upgrade 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. pg_dumpall does not save large objects. Check ]]> if you need to do this. 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 &version;, 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. 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. Very old versions might not have pg_ctl. If you can't find it or it doesn't work, find out the process ID of the old server, for example by typing ps ax | grep postmaster and signal it to stop this way: kill -INT processID 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 &version;, 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/postmaster -D /usr/local/pgsql/data Finally, restore your data with /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql -d template1 -f outputfile using the new psql. Further discussion appears in ,]]> which you are encouraged to read in any case. 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. regression test 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.) src/test/regress/README and the documentation contain]]> contains]]> detailed information about interpreting the test results. You can repeat this test at any later time by issuing the same command. 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 above. To install PostgreSQL enter gmake install This will install files into the directories that were specified in . 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.) 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 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. To undo the installation use the command gmake uninstall. However, this will not remove any created directories. 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. shared library 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 . 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 . 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. ldconfig 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. PATH 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 ) 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 $path ) MANPATH To enable your system to find the man documentation, you need to add lines like the following to a shell start-up file unless you installed into a location that is searched by default. MANPATH=/usr/local/pgsql/man:$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. The following is a quick summary of how to get PostgreSQL up and running once installed. The main documentation contains more information. 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 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. 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/postmaster -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/postmaster -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` In order to allow TCP/IP connections (rather than only Unix domain socket ones) you need to pass the -i option to postmaster. 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. 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. ]]> 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 builds reported by 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 &majorversion; but that we still expect to work. If you are having problems with the installation on a supported platform, please write to pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org or pgsql-ports@postgresql.org, not to the people listed here. OS Processor Version Reported Remarks AIX PowerPC 8.0.0 Travis P (twp@castle.fastmail.fm), 2004-12-12 see also doc/FAQ_AIX AIX RS6000 8.0.0 Hans-Jürgen Schönig (hs@cybertec.at), 2004-12-06 see also doc/FAQ_AIX BSD/OS x86 8.0.0 Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us), 2004-12-07 4.3.1 Debian GNU/Linux Alpha 7.4 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2003-10-25 Debian GNU/Linux AMD64 8.0.0 Build farm panda, snapshot 2004-12-06 01:20:02 sid, kernel 2.6 Debian GNU/Linux ARM 8.0.0 Jim Buttafuoco (jim@contactbda.com), 2005-01-06 Debian GNU/Linux IA64 7.4 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2003-10-25 Debian GNU/Linux m68k 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2004-12-09 sid Debian GNU/Linux MIPS 8.0.0 Build farm lionfish, snapshot 2004-12-06 11:00:08 3.1 (sarge), kernel 2.4 Debian GNU/Linux PA-RISC 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2004-12-07 sid Debian GNU/Linux PowerPC 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2004-12-15 sid Debian GNU/Linux S/390 7.4 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2003-10-25 Debian GNU/Linux Sparc 8.0.0 Noèl Köthe (noel@debian.org), 2004-12-09 sid, 32-bit Debian GNU/Linux x86 8.0.0 Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net), 2004-12-06 3.1 (sarge), kernel 2.6 Fedora AMD64 8.0.0 John Gray (jgray@azuli.co.uk), 2004-12-12 FC3 Fedora x86 8.0.0 Build farm dog, snapshot 2004-12-06 02:06:01 FC1 FreeBSD Alpha 7.4 Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net), 2003-10-25 4.8 FreeBSD x86 8.0.0 Build farm cockatoo, snapshot 2004-12-06 14:10:01 (4.10); Marc Fournier (scrappy@postgresql.org), 2004-12-07 (5.3) Gentoo Linux AMD64 8.0.0 Jani Averbach (jaa@jaa.iki.fi), 2005-01-13 Gentoo Linux x86 8.0.0 Paul Bort (pbort@tmwsystems.com), 2004-12-07 HP-UX IA64 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2005-01-06 11.23, gcc and cc; see also doc/FAQ_HPUX HP-UX PA-RISC 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2005-01-06 10.20 and 11.11, gcc and cc; see also doc/FAQ_HPUX IRIX MIPS 7.4 Robert E. Bruccoleri (bruc@stone.congenomics.com), 2003-11-12 6.5.20, cc only Mac OS X PowerPC 8.0.0 Andrew Rawnsley (ronz@ravensfield.com), 2004-12-07 10.3.5 Mandrakelinux x86 8.0.0 Build farm shrew, snapshot 2004-12-06 02:02:01 10.0 NetBSD arm32 7.4 Patrick Welche (prlw1@newn.cam.ac.uk), 2003-11-12 1.6ZE/acorn32 NetBSD m68k 8.0.0 Rémi Zara (remi_zara@mac.com), 2004-12-14 2.0 NetBSD Sparc 7.4.1 Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net), 2003-11-26 1.6.1, 32-bit NetBSD x86 8.0.0 Build farm canary, snapshot 2004-12-06 03:30:00 1.6 OpenBSD Sparc 8.0.0 Chris Mair (list@1006.org), 2005-01-10 3.3 OpenBSD Sparc64 8.0.0 Build farm spoonbill, snapshot 2005-01-06 00:50:05 3.6 OpenBSD x86 8.0.0 Build farm emu, snapshot 2004-12-06 11:35:03 3.6 Red Hat Linux AMD64 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux IA64 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux PowerPC 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux PowerPC 64 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux S/390 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux S/390x 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Red Hat Linux x86 8.0.0 Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us), 2004-12-07 RHEL 3AS Solaris Sparc 8.0.0 Kenneth Marshall (ktm@is.rice.edu), 2004-12-07 Solaris 8; see also doc/FAQ_Solaris Solaris x86 8.0.0 Build farm kudu, snapshot 2004-12-10 02:30:04 (cc); dragonfly, snapshot 2004-12-09 04:30:00 (gcc) Solaris 9; see also doc/FAQ_Solaris SUSE Linux AMD64 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, SLES 9 SUSE Linux IA64 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 SLES 9 SUSE Linux PowerPC 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 SLES 9 SUSE Linux PowerPC 64 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 SLES 9 SUSE Linux S/390 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 SLES 9 SUSE Linux S/390x 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 SLES 9 SUSE Linux x86 8.0.0 Reinhard Max (max@suse.de), 2005-01-03 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, SLES 9 Tru64 UNIX Alpha 8.0.0 Honda Shigehiro (fwif0083@mb.infoweb.ne.jp), 2005-01-07 5.0 UnixWare x86 8.0.0 Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net), 2004-12-14 cc, 7.1.4; see also doc/FAQ_SCO Windows x86 8.0.0 Dave Page (dpage@vale-housing.co.uk), 2004-12-07 XP Pro; see doc/FAQ_MINGW Windows with Cygwin x86 8.0.0 Build farm gibbon, snapshot 2004-12-11 01:33:01 see doc/FAQ_CYGWIN The following platforms are either known not to work, or they used to work in a fairly distant previous release. We include these here to let you know that these platforms could be supported if given some attention. OS Processor Version Reported Remarks BeOS x86 7.2 Cyril Velter (cyril.velter@libertysurf.fr), 2001-11-29 needs updates to semaphore code Linux PlayStation 2 8.0.0 Chris Mair (list@1006.org), 2005-01-09 requires --disable-spinlocks (works, but slow) NetBSD Alpha 7.2 Thomas Thai (tom@minnesota.com), 2001-11-20 1.5W NetBSD MIPS 7.2.1 Warwick Hunter (whunter@agile.tv), 2002-06-13 1.5.3 NetBSD PowerPC 7.2 Bill Studenmund (wrstuden@netbsd.org), 2001-11-28 1.5 NetBSD VAX 7.1 Tom I. Helbekkmo (tih@kpnQwest.no), 2001-03-30 1.5 QNX 4 RTOS x86 7.2 Bernd Tegge (tegge@repas-aeg.de), 2001-12-10 needs updates to semaphore code; see also doc/FAQ_QNX4 QNX RTOS v6 x86 7.2 Igor Kovalenko (Igor.Kovalenko@motorola.com), 2001-11-20 patches available in archives, but too late for 7.2 SCO OpenServer x86 7.3.1 Shibashish Satpathy (shib@postmark.net), 2002-12-11 5.0.4, gcc; see also doc/FAQ_SCO SunOS 4 Sparc 7.2 Tatsuo Ishii (t-ishii@sra.co.jp), 2001-12-04