database-setup.md 1.7 KB
Setting up a database
PostgreSQL can be a bit of a pain to configure if you don't know where to begin. Basically, your goal is to create a database, create a user account that has access to that database, and allow access to that user account over a network connection (which means it must have a password).
The following instructions have been tested to work on Ubuntu 16.04, but will probably work on other Debian-based distros too.
Installation
$ sudo apt-get install postgresql
Creating a user account
$ sudo -u postgres createuser -P <username>
You will be prompted for a password that you'll need later.
Creating a database
$ sudo -u postgres createdb -O <username> <database name>
This database will be owned by the user you've specified. We recommend the database name be the same as the username.
Testing access
To test that you're able to connect (type \q to quit after you log in):
$ psql -U <username> -h localhost <database name>
You can omit the database name here if it's the same as the username.
Database URL
Finally, once everything is figured out, the DATABASE_URL parameter you're
prompted for during install will look something like this:
pgsql://<username>:<password>@localhost/<database name>?serverVersion=9.5
The server version should be set to the version of PostgreSQL provided by your distro. For Ubuntu 16.04, it's '9.5'. If unsure, you can omit this parameter entirely and things should still work.