Install PostgreSQL 9.5 on CentOS/RHEL 7/6/5

PostgreSQL 9.5 Released. PostgreSQL is developed at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. PostgreSQL is a free, open-source object-relational database management system (object-RDBMS), like MySQL. It is a prevalent decision for some little and vast projects and has the benefit of being standards-compliant and having numerous features like reliable transactions and concurrency without read locks.

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Step #1 Adding PostgreSQL Yum Repository

First install PostgreSQL repository in your system, Use one of below commands as per your operating system.

For CentOS/RHEL 7
# rpm -Uvh http://yum.postgresql.org/9.5/redhat/rhel-7-x86_64/pgdg-centos95-9.5-2.noarch.rpm
For CentOS/RHEL 6
# rpm -Uvh http://yum.postgresql.org/9.5/redhat/rhel-6-x86_64/pgdg-redhat95-9.5-2.noarch.rpm
For CentOS/RHEL 5
# rpm -Uvh http://yum.postgresql.org/9.5/redhat/rhel-5-x86_64/pgdg-redhat95-9.5-2.noarch.rpm

For more PostgreSQL repositories check PostgreSQL link page where you can get repository package rpm for various operating systems.

Step #2 Install PostgreSQL Server

After adding PostgreSQL yum repository in your system use following command to install PostgreSQL 9.5 on your system.

# yum install postgresql95-server postgresql95

Step #3 Initializing PGDATA

After installing PostgreSQL server, It’s required to initialize database. To initialize database use below command.

# /usr/pgsql-9.5/bin/postgresql95-setup initdb

Above command will take some time to initialize PostgreSQL first time. PGDATA environment variable contains the path of data directory.

PostgreSQL data directory Path: /var/lib/pgsql/9.5/data/

Step #4 Start PostgreSQL Server

Use below command to start PostgreSQL service. Also enable PostgreSQL service to auto start on system boot.

For CentOS/RHEL 7
# systemctl start postgresql-9.5
# systemctl enable postgresql-9.5
For CentOS/RHEL 6/5
# service  postgresql-9.5 start
# chkconfig postgresql-9.5 on

Step #5 Set Postgres User Password

Follow below steps to set postgresQL password:

# su - postgres

Use psql command to access PostgreSQL prompt with admin privileges.

$ psql

psql (9.5.1)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

You may create password for user postgres for security purpose.

postgres=# \password postgres

You have successfully installed PostgreSQL Server.

Enjoy it!