Installing PostgreSQL

Installing on Ubuntu / Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib
sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql
sudo -u postgres psql

On Debian-family systems the postgres OS user owns the database cluster. Connect as that user first.

Setting a Password and Creating a User

sudo -u postgres psql
ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'strong_password';
CREATE ROLE app_user LOGIN PASSWORD 'app_password';
CREATE DATABASE appdb OWNER app_user;
\q

Connecting With psql

psql -h localhost -U app_user -d appdb -W

Verifying the Install

psql --version
sudo systemctl status postgresql
sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT version();"

Installing on Windows / macOS

Use the interactive EDB installer for Windows, or Homebrew on macOS with brew install postgresql. The EDB installer starts the service and gives you pgAdmin automatically.

Key Points

• The postgres superuser is created during install.
• Create separate roles (users) for applications.
• psql is the powerful command-line client.
• Verify with psql --version and a version query.