Postgres SQL

General documentation you will find here: postgresql.org - interactive (!) manual with comments.

You should read this in advance to make shure the concepts behind postgresql configuration, startup and security (e.g. 'roles).

Ubuntu Feisty

Thanks to the article on hocuspok.us, it was very easy to set up postgresql-8.2 running on ubuntu.

Installation

Install postgresql

sudo apt-get install postgresql-8.2 postgresql-client-8.2

For administration we install pgadmin3

sudo apt-get install pgadmin3 pgadmin3-data

Set database admin account

Alter the password for the standard postgres user account (as root)

sudo su
postgres -c psql template1
template1=# ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'new_password';
template1=# \q

/etc/postgresql/8.2/main/postgresql.conf

Assure that the server is accessible on localhost

sudo gedit /etc/postgresql/8.2/main/postgresql.conf

listen_addresses = 'localhost'
password_encryption = on

/etc/postgresql/8.2/main/pg_hba.conf

Security settings

sudo gedit /etc/postgresql/8.2/main/pg_hba.conf

# Allow any user on the local system to connect to any database under
# any user name using Unix-domain sockets (the default for local
# connections).
#
# Database administrative login by UNIX sockets
local all all trust

# TYPE DATABASE USER CIDR-ADDRESS METHOD

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local all all md5

# IPv4 local connections:
host all all 127.0.0.1/32 md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host all all ::1/128 md5

# Connections for all PCs on the subnet
#
# TYPE DATABASE USER IP-ADDRESS IP-MASK METHOD
# e.g. host all all 192.168.0.0/24 md5
# e.g. host all all 192.168.0.10 255.255.255.0 md5
host all all [ip address] [subnet mask] md5

Restart postgresql

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.1 restart