Installing PostgreSQL (Shell Scripts Provided)

[Rewandythal]

Installing PostgreSQL
As requested by many people, my latest tutorial is an installation guide for PostgreSQL.
It details only the standard install procedure, as many other, less common, installs are

documented in the PostgreSQL documentation. The only benefit of this over the PostgreSQL

documentation is that noty only does it tell you the commands you need to execure to install

PostgreSQL, it also provides three scripts in a .tar.gz file.

pgsql-install
This script installs PostgreSQL (to /usr/local/bin/pgsql, by default).
This script must be run with root privileges in order for the make and make install to work,

so remember to 'su' before running this.

pgsql-firstrun
This script should be run as the user created in the pgsql-install script, usually postgres.

Remember, therefore, to do a 'su - postgres' before running this. This script should be run

once only, and creates PostgreSQL's database directory and starts PostgreSQL.

pgsql-start
This script is used for subsequent runs of PostgreSQL. Remember that you do not need to run

this immediately after pgsql-firstrun, as pgsql-firstrun starts PostgreSQL anyway.
This script should be run on boot-up to start the PostgreSQL service, and should be run as

the user created in the install script, usually postgres. Remember to 'su - postgres' before

running this one.

Installing & Running PostgreSQL

su
gunzip postgresql-7.2.1.tar.gz
tar xf- postgresql-7.2.1.tar
cd ./postgresql-7.2.1
./configure
gmake
gmake install
useradd 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 -i -D /usr/local/pgsql/data >logfile 2>&1 &

Creating A Database
To create a new database, you can use the following:

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb test

Replace 'test' with the name of the database you wish to create. For further details about

using PostgreSQL, consult a manual, as it is beyond the scope of this tutorial, which

concentrates on installation only.

Using PostgreSQL
From the command line, PostgreSQL can be started as follows:

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql test

Replace 'test' with the name of your database. From this console, you can issue SQL commands

to the database, such as:

CREATE TABLE services (service text,port number,description text);
INSERT INTO services VALUES ('Apache',80,'Apache HTTPd');
INSERT INTO services VALUES ('SSH',22,'OpenSSH');
\q

The \q at the end exits the PostgreSQL console.

The Scripts
To use the scripts, do the following:

gunzip pgsql-scripts.tar.gz
tar xf- pgsql-scripts.tar

Disclaimer
I accept absolutely no responsibility for anything these scripts do to your machine, if they kill it its your fault for running them, I do not guarantee in any way that they do what they're supposed to, although I hope they do.

[Rewandythal]

The tutorial, in text format, with the .tar.gz file of the scripts, compressed for safe-keeping and future reference.

For any other documentation, go to PostgreSQL.org