Setting up PostgreSQL on Debian Buster

In a previous article, we set up your Debian Buster system with git, ruby, and a bash shell that tells you the ruby version and branch. Next up, we're going to install PostgreSQL and dependencies needed to get it working with Ruby on Rails.

First, let's make sure your system is up to date:

1sudo apt update
2sudo apt upgrade

Next, we're going to jump right in and install postgres 10:

1sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev

Next, start it up:

1sudo service postgresql start

Switch over to the postgres account on your server to continue setup by typing:

1sudo -i -u postgres

Once there, we'll create a new role with your user. Since this is intended for local development we're going to make some easy assumptions. In my case, I named the user with the same name as my debian username (vince) and made it a superuser as well. If you're try to set up a server for production, this is probably not what you want to do.

(debian)postgres@localhost:~$ createuser --interactive
(debian)postgres@localhost:~$ exit

Since we're getting set up for LOCAL development, we're going to change some of the safeguards that PostgreSQL comes enabled with by default on Linux. Head over to /etc/postgresql/10/main/ and edit the pg_hba.conf file:

1sudo vi /etc/postgresql/10/main/pg_hba.conf

Look for the entries that say peer or md5 and change them to trust. Again, DO NOT DO THIS FOR PRODUCTION.

# Database administrative login by Unix domain socket
local   all             postgres                                trust

# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local   all             all                                     trust
# IPv4 local connections:
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 trust
# Allow replication connections from localhost, by a user with the
# replication privilege.
local   replication     all                                     trust
host    replication     all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
host    replication     all             ::1/128                 trust

Now that we're done with that, let's stop and start postgres

1sudo service postgresql restart