PostgreSQL Installation on Mac

Internal

• PostgreSQL
• PostgreSQL Operations

Overview

Initial Installation

brew install postgresql

Configure Environment

The installation output will contain the value to used for -D flag (the database directory).

Write it down and set the PGDATA environment variable to that value, so pg_ct commands will work without an explicit -D.

Add to .bashrc:

export PGDATA=/opt/brew/var/postgresql@14

See:

PGDATA

Update Already Installed Package

brew upgrade postgresql

Operate the Database as a Service

Start at Login

To have launchd start postgresql now and restart at login:

brew services start postgresql@14

For more details, see:

brew services

To Run without a Service

/opt/brew/opt/postgresql@14/bin/postgres -D /opt/brew/var/postgresql@14

Explore equivalency with:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start

Status

  pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres status

Stop

  pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop