PostgreSQL (also called postgres) is very famous, powerful, open-source object-relational database management system that has been around for almost 30 years. PostgreSQL requires very minimum maintained efforts because of its stability. Therefore, if you develop applications based on PostgreSQL, the total cost of ownership is low in comparison with other database management systems.
Recommended Read: Simple guide to install POSTGRESQL on Centos/RHEL
Also Read: How to setup SSH login without password
In this tutorial, we will learn to install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu. So let’s start the tutorial,
Install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu
There are two methods using which we can install Postgresql on Ubuntu systems,
1- Using the default Ubuntu repositories,
2- Using the official PostgreSQL repositories
1- Install Postgresql using default repositories
Ubuntu also maintains Postgresql on official Ubuntu repositories but they might be an older version. So if you don’t have any concern for the Postgres version, then use this method & if you want to install a particular version, then the second method is the way to go.
This method is quite simple, to install PostgreSQL execute the following command,
$ sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib
Once the database has been installed, we can start the database & also enable it to start at boot time,
# sudo systemctl start postgresql
# sudo systemctl enable postgresql
So our database is now up & ready to be used.
2- Install Postgresql using Official Postgresql repositories
Using this method, we will install a stable version 11 of PostgreSQL Install the official repository with the following command,
$ wget –quiet -O – https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add –
Next, execute the following command for add repository contents,
$ RELEASE=$(lsb_release -cs)
$ echo “deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ ${RELEASE}”-pgdg main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list
Now to install Postgresql on Ubuntu, we will run the following commands,
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt -y install postgresql-11
Now we will start the database service & also enable it to start at boot time,
# sudo systemctl start postgresql-11
# sudo systemctl enable postgresql-11
PostgreSQL Configuration
Set the Admin user password
To change the database admin user password, first switch to postgres user,
# su – postgres
Next, execute the following command from the terminal,
$ psql -c “alter user postgres with password ‘NEWPASSWORDhere'”
Create a new user & a new database
To create a new database, run the following command,
$ createuser new_user
$ createdb new_db -O new_user
$ grant all privileges on database new_db to new_user;
Connect to a database
To connect to a database, use the following command,
$ psql -U new_user -h localhost -d new_db
Connecting to the database from a remote system
The above command will only work from localhost but if we want to access the database from a remote host, we need to make some changes as by default we can’t connect to the database from a remote system.
To allow access from remote systems, open the following file,
$ sudo vi /etc/postgresql/11/main/postgresql.conf
& look for the following line,
listen_addresses =
& change to
listen_addresses = ‘*’
Next, we will make changes on another file,
$ sudo vi /etc/postgresql/11/data/pg_hba.conf
& add the following lines,
# Accept from anywhere
host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5
# Accept from trusted subnet
host all all 10.10.0.0/16 md5
We need to restart the database server to implement the changes.
# sudo systemctl restart postgresql-11
We now end this tutorial on how to install postgresql on Ubuntu, please also see our tutorial on some of the important Postgresql commands that you should know. Please feel free to send in any questions or queries using the comment box below.
