Blog – ShiftEleven

sudo port install \
  postgresql83 \
  postgresql83-server

sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
sudo su postgres -c '/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/initdb -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb'

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.postgresql83-server.plist

sudo port install pgAdmin3

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" \
  gem install postgres -- \
  --with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql83 \
  --with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql83

42 Responses to “Installing PostgreSQL on Leopard using MacPorts”

1. March 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm #Jim

   Hi Adam – terrific post. And exactly what I am doing today. The install line for the ruby adapter had me pulling my hair out yesterday. Thanks!!

   There’s a hiccup in the post layout that prevents your suggestion for auto-starting postgres and marking up pgAdmin. I can read it from the page source: the closing > on the pre tag is missing.

   Many thanks!!! Jim.

2. March 23rd, 2008 at 7:20 am #K. Adam Christensen

   Thanks for the heads up on that missing >.

3. April 1st, 2008 at 7:10 pm #Fred Nerk

   I’m getting an error trying to initdb the database with the postgres account. The error is “su: /dev/null: Permission denied”. That seems to me that there is no user called postgres to su to, or that the postgres user is set to no-login by setting its shell to /dev/null.

   So I think the instructions need another step about how to set up a “postgres” user if you don’t already have one. Thanks.

4. April 2nd, 2008 at 10:46 am #K. Adam Christensen

   I actually didn’t set up a postgres user so that has perked my curiosity. I will have to look into this once I get home. Thanks.

5. April 4th, 2008 at 8:05 pm #Robert

   Awsome!
   Thanks for the taking the time to put this together.

6. April 20th, 2008 at 12:43 pm #Benjamin Keating

   nice! thanks for the simple walk through, I use MySQL but thought I’d give this a try today.

7. May 9th, 2008 at 8:38 am #Fabien Jakimowicz

   I use your guide to made my own one in french : http://fabien.jakimowicz.com/articles/2008/05/09/rails-sur-postgresql-pour-leopard

8. May 14th, 2008 at 12:49 pm #Peter Jones

   The solution to the /dev/null error:

   > sudo dscl . -create /Users/postgres UserShell /bin/sh
   > sudo dscl . -create /Users/postgres NFSHomeDirectory /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83

9. May 15th, 2008 at 8:17 am #K. Adam Christensen

   Thanks Peter!

10. June 19th, 2008 at 8:46 pm #Mark Catley

    FYI. If you put pg_config in your path (if not you should put it in there by adding /opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin to your path)
    –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql83 \
    –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql83

    is not required.

11. June 27th, 2008 at 4:33 am #Steve Purcell

    With rubygems 1.2.0, installing the postgres gem using the above command does not work.

    I have a macports Ruby 1.8.6 with that rubygems version, and the postgres gem apparently won’t build, while the same command works fine with Apple’s preinstalled Ruby + rubygems.

    Odd.

12. July 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm #Alex

    I didn’t have any problems installing the postgres gem under gem 1.2.0 and 1.8.6 p114

    $ sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch i386″ \
    > gem install postgres — \
    > –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql83 \
    > –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql83
    Building native extensions. This could take a while…
    Successfully installed postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28
    1 gem installed
    Installing ri documentation for postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28…
    Installing RDoc documentation for postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28…

13. July 7th, 2008 at 2:30 pm #K. Adam Christensen

    Thanks for the heads up Alex

14. July 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am #Phoenix

    Any idea of how to make sure postgresql and PHP work together? Thanks!

15. July 14th, 2008 at 8:48 pm #Phoenix

    How can I manually start postgres after I have installed it this way? I do not wish to have it start automatically every time as I do not use it all the time. Thanks! (Please CC my email address if you reply. Thanks)

16. July 17th, 2008 at 6:08 pm #djwonk › Setup PostgreSQL on Mac OS X

    [...] post was partly inspired by the March 2008 article by ShiftEleven. This was written by David. Posted on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at 5:45 pm. Filed under Software. [...]

17. October 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm #slothbear

    Many thanks — exactly what I needed to get up and running.

18. October 17th, 2008 at 11:01 am #Darren Oh

    The “su: /dev/null: Permission denied” can be avoided by setting the postgres UserShell to /usr/bin/false.

19. November 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm #jpemberthy

    Thanks!

20. November 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm #John Baker

    I had postgresql81 installed via macports on my G5 leopard already so I just adapted your command like this..

    sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch Power Macintosh” \
    gem install postgres — \
    –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql81 \
    –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql81

    However, I this happens..

    osx:redmine john$ sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch Power Macintosh” \
    > gem install postgres — \
    > –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql81 \
    > –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql81
    Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
    Building native extensions. This could take a while…
    ERROR: Error installing postgres:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb install postgres — –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql81 –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql81
    extconf.rb:73: command not found: pg_config –bindir
    extconf.rb:46: command not found: pg_config –includedir
    extconf.rb:53: command not found: pg_config –libdir
    checking for main() in -lpq… no
    *** extconf.rb failed ***
    Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
    necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
    details. You may need configuration options.

    Provided configuration options:
    –with-opt-dir
    –without-opt-dir
    –with-opt-include
    –without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
    –with-opt-lib
    –without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
    –with-make-prog
    –without-make-prog
    –srcdir=.
    –curdir
    –ruby=/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby
    –with-pgsql-dir
    –without-pgsql-dir
    –with-pgsql-include=${pgsql-dir}/include
    –with-pgsql-lib=${pgsql-dir}/lib
    –with-pqlib
    –without-pqlib
    Could not find PostgreSQL build environment (libraries & headers): Makefile not created

    Gem files will remain installed in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28 for inspection.
    Results logged to /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28/ext/gem_make.out

    —-

    I don’t understand as the include and lib are definitely there on my machine..

    Any clues?

    In case it helps.. I have the following gems installed (I upgraded rails)..

    osx:redmine john$ gem list

    *** LOCAL GEMS ***

    actionmailer (2.1.0, 1.3.6, 1.3.3)
    actionpack (2.1.0, 1.13.6, 1.13.3)
    actionwebservice (1.2.6, 1.2.3)
    activerecord (2.1.0, 1.15.6, 1.15.3)
    activeresource (2.1.0)
    activesupport (2.1.0, 1.4.4, 1.4.2)
    acts_as_ferret (0.4.1)
    capistrano (2.0.0)
    cgi_multipart_eof_fix (2.5.0, 2.2)
    daemons (1.0.9, 1.0.7)
    dnssd (0.6.0)
    fastthread (1.0.1, 1.0)
    fcgi (0.8.7)
    ferret (0.11.4)
    gem_plugin (0.2.3, 0.2.2)
    highline (1.2.9)
    hpricot (0.6)
    libxml-ruby (0.3.8.4)
    mongrel (1.1.4, 1.0.1)
    needle (1.3.0)
    net-sftp (1.1.0)
    net-ssh (1.1.2)
    rails (2.1.2, 2.1.0, 1.2.6, 1.2.3)
    rake (0.8.3, 0.7.3)
    RedCloth (3.0.4)
    ruby-openid (1.1.4)
    ruby-yadis (0.3.4)
    rubynode (0.1.3)
    sources (0.0.1)
    sqlite3-ruby (1.2.1)
    termios (0.9.4)

21. November 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm #John Baker

    I got it!!!… For those who want to know I had to change it to this..

    sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch ppc” \
    env PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/lib/postgresql81/bin \
    gem install postgres — \
    –with-pgsql-lib=/opt/local/lib/postgresql81 \
    –with-pgsql-include=/opt/local/include/postgresql81

    Phew…

22. February 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm #PostgreSQL, Ruby, and Rails: WIN at Josh Kim dot Org

    [...] yet another great walkthrough, you’re going to want to install it in this manner on an Intel Mac (if you installed [...]

23. February 21st, 2009 at 3:52 pm #Niall

    Nice post. Would recommend a final bullet about putting the PostgreSQL install bin directory into the system PATH using a file in /etc/paths.d:

    [niallsmart@Nialls-Air-3 ~]$ cat /etc/paths.d/PostgreSQL
    /opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin

24. February 24th, 2009 at 8:13 am #hill180

    Thanks for the post!

    Just FYI,
    I usually only want the server to start when I am developing. I added the following to my .profile file and I can stop, start and get a status easily by just typing pgstart, pgstop and pgstatus

    alias pgstart=”sudo su postgres -c ‘/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/pg_ctl -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb -l /opt/local/var/log/postgresql83/postgres.log start’”
    alias pgstop=”sudo su postgres -c ‘/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/pg_ctl -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb stop -m fast’”
    alias pgstatus=”sudo su postgres -c ‘/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/pg_ctl status -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb’”

    Just a hint for those who might want it.

25. May 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm #cult hero

    Thanks for this guide. I’ve been experimenting with getting the Postgres gem to work with Ruby 1.9.1 and while I got it working fine on Ubuntu, getting it to work on OS X was a little bit more complicated. Thanks to your guide, a slightly modified step did the trick:

    sudo env ARCHFLAGS=’-arch i386′ POSTGRES_INCLUDE=’/opt/local/include/postgresql83′ POSTGRES_LIB=’/opt/local/lib/postgresql83′ ruby extconf.rb

    (Since I had to modify extconf.rb, libpq-compat.c and postgres.c somewhat I have to do the build steps manually, running “gem” overwrites all my changes.)

26. July 8th, 2009 at 3:05 pm #Ceres

    Thanks for this. It helped a lot.

27. July 13th, 2009 at 10:13 pm #gabe

    Thanks for this tutorial! it helped a lot!

    Now to figure out pgAdmin…

28. October 18th, 2009 at 7:11 pm #links for 2009-10-18 « Mike Does Tech

    [...] Installing PostgreSQL on Leopard using MacPorts – Blog – ShiftEleven sudo port install pgAdmin3 [...]

29. November 15th, 2009 at 5:57 am #Blake

    I was running into issues getting Postgres working nicely with GeoDjango and postgis, and found this tutorial very helpful. Postgres has GIS and spatial mapping capabilities that I am now beginning to explore. The tutorial here is the perfect complement for those interested in hooking Postgres to Django and GeoDjango on Mac OS X.
    If interested, check out:
    http://geodjango.org/docs/install.html

30. January 17th, 2010 at 10:14 pm #josh

    i was having problems with this and then i tried installing the ruby-pg gem instead. also using macports on snow leopard your arch will be x86_64 and not i386.

    sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch x86_64″ gem install –remote ruby-pg

31. January 20th, 2010 at 7:11 am #Warren Buffett

    If you have older MacPorts you have to do a Macports update

    sudo port selfupdate

    HTH

    Warren

32. February 3rd, 2010 at 10:04 pm #Sean Schofield

    Thanks for the tip re:gem install/compile with mac ports.

33. February 20th, 2010 at 11:33 pm #Insulinwof

    these instructions worked great for me. many thanks.

    question: could you do something similar for upgrade to 8.4.2 via ports? i have no idea how to do this right.

    also: any idea why i’m getting this when i try to do selfupdate:

    dlopen(/Library/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib, 10): no suitable image found. Did find:
    /Library/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
    while executing
    “load /Library/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib”
    (“package ifneeded macports 1.0″ script)
    invoked from within
    “package require macports”
    (file “/opt/local/bin/port” line 39)

34. February 21st, 2010 at 10:05 am #Adam Christensen

    @Insulinwof – I don’t think I remember seeing the macports error before. Just as a shot in the dark, did you have macports installed on OSX 10.5 and then upgrade to 10.6?

35. April 5th, 2010 at 3:40 pm #Darren Weber

    How about

    {
    sudo port install rb-postgres
    }

36. April 5th, 2010 at 3:42 pm #Darren Weber

    One more thing, check the details in that port with

    {
    port cat rb-postgres
    }

37. April 12th, 2010 at 11:51 am #Carlos

    Hi, I am Carlos from Colombia. I would like to know what is the advantage of using MacPorts to install PostgreSQL over downloading the .DMG package for Leopard from the PostgreSQL website.

38. April 17th, 2010 at 6:43 am #mac leopard

    I am very pleasedto see that you are putting so much of effort for encouraging the readers with valueable posts like this, I have sent this post to my twitter accounts.

39. May 4th, 2010 at 11:16 am #Jenlsing

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40. July 23rd, 2010 at 5:22 am #raaz

    how can i avoid the error su: do directory

41. July 23rd, 2010 at 5:23 am #raaz

    sorry how can i avoid the error su: no directory

42. July 23rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm #Sketchy

    Thank you for the instructions! Points of note though: pgAdmin3 errors out when installing dependencies; also it installs a different postgresql84 even if it is installed.