How To Install PostgreSQL on Debian 10 Buster

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PostgreSQL on Debian 10 Buster. For those of you who didn’t know, PostgreSQL or Postgres is an open-source relational database management system. It is popular and has many advanced features like reliable transactions and concurrency without reading locks.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of PostgreSQL on a Debian 10 (Buster) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 10 (Buster).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install PostgreSQL on Debian 10 Buster

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

apt update
apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing PostgreSQL on Debian 10.

PostgreSQL is available in the default repositories. Now, Install PostgreSQL packages using apt command:

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib

Once the installation is completed, the PostgreSQL service will start automatically. You can verify the installation using the below command:

sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT version();"

It will show result output as given below:

PostgreSQL 9.6.13 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 6.3.0-18+deb9u1) 6.3.0 20191016, 64-bit

Step 3. Accessing the PostgreSQL command prompt.

After installing the PostgreSQL database server, by default, it creates a user ‘postgres’ with role ‘postgres’. It also creates a system account with same name ‘postgres’. So to connect to postgres server, login to your system as user postgres and connect database:

su - postgres
psql

Now you are logged in to the PostgreSQL database server. To check login info use the following command from the database command prompt:

postgres-# \conninfo

To disconnect from the PostgreSQL database command prompt just type the below command and press enter. It will return you back to the Ubuntu command prompt:

postgres-# \q

Create a new user and database:

### For example, let us create a new user called “intan” with password “ramona”, and database called “intandb”. ###
sudo -u postgres createuser -D -A -P intan
sudo -u postgres createdb -O idroot intandb

Congratulations! You have successfully installed the PostgreSQL Server. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing PostgreSQL in Debian 10 Buster systems. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official PostgreSQL website.