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 , which
normally means EXEC-PREFIX/bin/usr/local/pgsql/bin.
--datadir=DIRECTORY Sets the directory for read-only data files used by the
installed programs. The default is
. Note that this has
nothing to do with where your database files will be placed.
PREFIX/share
--sysconfdir=DIRECTORY The directory for various configuration files,
by default.
PREFIX/etc
--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
man subdirectories.
The default is x.
PREFIX/man
--with-docdir=DIRECTORY--without-docdir
Documentation files, except “man” pages, will be
installed into this directory. The default is
. If the option
PREFIX/doc--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.
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-perlBuild the PL/Perl server-side language.
--with-pythonBuild the PL/Python server-side language.
--with-tclBuild 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--without-readlinePrevents use of the Readline library. This disables command-line editing and history in psql, so it is not recommended.
--with-bonjourBuild with Bonjour support. This requires Bonjour support in your operating system. Recommended on Mac OS X.
--enable-integer-datetimesUse 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 Section 8.5, “Date/Time Types” 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-spinlocksAllow 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-safetyMake 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-zlibPrevents 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-debugCompiles 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-cassertEnables 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-dependEnables 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.
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'
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.
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.) Chapter 27, Regression Tests contains detailed information about interpreting the test results. You can repeat this test at any later time by issuing the same command.
Installing The Files
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 Section 14.4, “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 installgmake -C src/include installgmake -C src/interfaces installgmake -C doc install
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.