• How to Install PostgreSQL @ Home

These slides (and accompanying video) describe

• how to install a PostgreSQL server from source code
• on MacOS or Linux

• guaranteed to be available on Linux
• will need to download Xcode on Mac

Summary:

• download PostgreSQL tarball from postgresql.org
• untar it and run  ./configure --prefix=YourPGDir
• make   (takes a few minutes)
• make install   (relatively quick)
• set up environment   (PGHOST, PGDATA, PATH))
• initdb   (creates YourPGDir)
• edit YourPGDir/data/postgresql.conf
• pg_ctl start -l YourPGDir/Log

My env script

# Set up environment for running PostgreSQL
# Must be "source"d from sh, bash, ksh, ...

# PostgreSQL needs more memory on MacOS
# sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=1073741824
# sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=1073741824

PGHOME=/Users/jas/pgsql
export PGDATA=$PGHOME/data
export PGHOST=$PGDATA
export PGPORT=5432
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PGHOME/lib
PATH=$PGHOME/bin:$PATH
pg1() { pg_ctl start -l $PGHOME/log ; }
pg0() { pg_ctl stop ; }

Obviously, adjust to suit your local conditions

On MacOS, PostgreSQL grabs more memory than MacOS expects

If you have "Out of memory" (or somesuch) errors, you'll need

# PostgreSQL needs more memory
sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=1073741824
sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=1073741824

You only need to run these commands once (if at all)

What I edited in postgresql.conf

...
listen_addresses = ''    # what IP address(es) to listen on;
#port = 5432             # (change requires restart)
max_connections = 8      # (change requires restart)
#superuser_reserved_connections = 3 # (change requires restart)
unix_socket_directories = '/Users/jas/pgsql13/data'
                         # comma-separated list of directories
                         # (change requires restart)
...

The socket directory has to match the value of $PGDATA