PostgreSQL - Scripting installation from Source

Question

I'm trying to install PostgreSQL from source and script it for automatic installation.

Installing dependances, downloading and compiling PostgreSQL works good. But there are 3 commands that I need to run as Postgres User

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb test

I saw this link but it doesn't work in my script here is the output :

Success. You can now start the database server using:

    /usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/
or
    /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/ -l logfile start

server starting
createdb: could not connect to database template1: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
        Is the server running locally and accepting
        connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"?
admin@ip-172-31-27-106:~$ LOG:  database system was shut down at 2015-03-27 10:09:54 UTC
LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
LOG:  autovacuum launcher started

And the script :

sudo su postgres <<-'EOF'
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/ start
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb pumgrana
EOF

After that, I need to press enter and the server is running. My database is not created. It seems like the script tries to create the database then run the server but I'm not sure. Can someone help me?

Craig Ringer · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-27 11:54:09Z

1

There are a few things wrong with that script:

pg_ctl should get a -w argument, making sure it waits until PostgreSQL has started before exiting.
You don't have any error checking, so it'll just keep going if something doesn't work. At minimum you should use set -e at the start.

I also suggest using sudo rather than su, which is kind of obsolete these days. You never need sudo su, that's what sudo -u is for. Using sudo also makes it easier to pass environment variables in. So I'd write something like (untested):

sudo -u postgres PATH="/usr/local/pgsql/bin:$PATH" <<-'EOF'
set -e
initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/
pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data/ -w start
createdb pumgrana
EOF

You might want to pass PGPORT or some other relevant env vars into the script too.

Completely separately to this ... why? Why do this? If you're automating an install from source, why not just build a .deb or .rpm automatically instead, then install that?

answered Mar 27, 2015 at 11:54

Craig Ringer

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4 Comments

Tristan Djahel Over a year ago

I'm not an expert in Linux binaries and that kind of stuff. I didn't think about that creating a .deb file. I'm gonna give a try. Also, I'm trying the solution you gave me I'll tell you if this works. And thank you for your answer

Tristan Djahel Over a year ago

Antoher question about building an .deb package. Do you mean install postgreSQL with .deb package, do my suff on my db and then make it an .deb?

Craig Ringer Over a year ago

I have no idea what you're trying to do, so I can't really say.

Tristan Djahel Over a year ago

Your solution worked. Thank you ! I'm trying to automating a postgreSQL installation on an Amazon EC2 virtual server (I know there is RDS, but for some reason we cannot use it). I want a full automatic installation of my database, tables, ...

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