17.5. Post-Installation Setup#
17.5.1. Shared Libraries#
On some systems with shared libraries you need to tell the system how to find the newly installed shared libraries. The systems on which this isnot necessary includeFreeBSD,Linux,NetBSD,OpenBSD, andSolaris.
The method to set the shared library search path varies between platforms, but the most widely-used method is to set the environment variableLD_LIBRARY_PATH
like so: In Bourne shells (sh
,ksh
,bash
,zsh
):
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/libexport LD_LIBRARY_PATH
or incsh
ortcsh
:
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/pgsql/lib
Replace/usr/local/pgsql/lib
with whatever you set
to inStep 1. You should put these commands into a shell start-up file such as--libdir
/etc/profile
or~/.bash_profile
. Some good information about the caveats associated with this method can be found athttp://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/_/ldpath.html.
On some systems it might be preferable to set the environment variableLD_RUN_PATH
before building.
OnCygwin, put the library directory in thePATH
or move the.dll
files into thebin
directory.
If in doubt, refer to the manual pages of your system (perhapsld.so
orrld
). If you later get a message like:
psql: error in loading shared librarieslibpq.so.2.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
then this step was necessary. Simply take care of it then.
If you are onLinux and you have root access, you can run:
/sbin/ldconfig /usr/local/pgsql/lib
(or equivalent directory) after installation to enable the run-time linker to find the shared libraries faster. Refer to the manual page ofldconfig
for more information. OnFreeBSD,NetBSD, andOpenBSD the command is:
/sbin/ldconfig -m /usr/local/pgsql/lib
instead. Other systems are not known to have an equivalent command.
17.5.2. Environment Variables#
If you installed into/usr/local/pgsql
or some other location that is not searched for programs by default, you should add/usr/local/pgsql/bin
(or whatever you set
to inStep 1) into your--bindir
PATH
. Strictly speaking, this is not necessary, but it will make the use ofPostgreSQL much more convenient.
To do this, add the following to your shell start-up file, such as~/.bash_profile
(or/etc/profile
, if you want it to affect all users):
PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/bin:$PATHexport PATH
If you are usingcsh
ortcsh
, then use this command:
set path = ( /usr/local/pgsql/bin $path )
To enable your system to find theman documentation, you need to add lines like the following to a shell start-up file unless you installed into a location that is searched by default:
MANPATH=/usr/local/pgsql/share/man:$MANPATHexport MANPATH
The environment variablesPGHOST
andPGPORT
specify to client applications the host and port of the database server, overriding the compiled-in defaults. If you are going to run client applications remotely then it is convenient if every user that plans to use the database setsPGHOST
. This is not required, however; the settings can be communicated via command line options to most client programs.