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Chapter 19. Installation

Complete installation instructions for Postgres v6.5.1.

Before installing Postgres, you may wish to visit www.postgresql.org for up to date information, patches, etc.

These installation instructions assume:

  • Commands are Unix-compatible. See note below.

  • Defaults are used except where noted.

  • User postgres is the Postgres superuser.

  • The source path is /usr/src/pgsql (other paths are possible).

  • The runtime path is /usr/local/pgsql (other paths are possible).

Commands were tested on RedHat Linux version 5.2 using the tcsh shell. Except where noted, they will probably work on most systems. Commands like ps and tar may vary wildly between platforms on what options you should use. Use common sense before typing in these commands.

Our Makefiles require GNU make (called “gmake” in this document). They will not work with non-GNU make programs. If you have GNU make installed under the name “make” instead of “gmake”, then you will use the command make instead. That's OK, but you need to have the GNU form of make to succeed with an installation.

Requirements to Run Postgres

Up to date information on supported platforms is at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/admin/install.htm. In general, most Unix-compatible platforms with modern libraries should be able to run Postgres.

Although the minimum required memory for running Postgres is as little as 8MB, there are noticable improvements in runtimes for the regression tests when expanding memory up to 96MB on a relatively fast dual-processor system running X-Windows. The rule is you can never have too much memory.

Check that you have sufficient disk space. You will need about 30 Mbytes for /usr/src/pgsql, about 5 Mbytes for /usr/local/pgsql (excluding your database) and 1 Mbyte for an empty database. The database will temporarily grow to about 20 Mbytes during the regression tests. You will also need about 3 Mbytes for the distribution tar file.

We therefore recommend that during installation and testing you have well over 20 Mbytes free under /usr/local and another 25 Mbytes free on the disk partition containing your database. Once you delete the source files, tar file and regression database, you will need 2 Mbytes for /usr/local/pgsql, 1 Mbyte for the empty database, plus about five times the space you would require to store your database data in a flat file.

To check for disk space, use

$ df -k