INITDB(1) PostgreSQL Server Applications INITDB(1)
initdb - create a new PostgreSQL database cluster
initdb [ option... ] [ --pgdata ] [ -D ] directory
initdb creates a new PostgreSQL database cluster. A database cluster is
a collection of databases that are managed by a single server instance.
Creating a database cluster consists of creating the directories in
which the database data will live, generating the shared catalog tables
(tables that belong to the whole cluster rather than to any particular
database), and creating the template1 database. When you later create a
new database, everything in the template1 database is copied. It con-
tains catalog tables filled in for things like the built-in types.
initdb initializes the database cluster’s default locale and character
set encoding. Some locale categories are fixed for the lifetime of the
cluster. There is also a performance impact in using locales other than
C or POSIX. Therefore it is important to make the right choice when
running initdb. Other locale categories can be changed later when the
server is started. initdb will write those locale settings into the
postgresql.conf configuration file so they are the default, but they
can be changed by editing that file. To set the locale that initdb
uses, see the description of the --locale option. The character set
encoding can be set separately for each database as it is created.
initdb determines the encoding for the template1 database, which will
serve as the default for all other databases. To alter the default
encoding use the --encoding option.
initdb must be run as the user that will own the server process,
because the server needs to have access to the files and directories
that initdb creates. Since the server may not be run as root, you must
not run initdb as root either. (It will in fact refuse to do so.)
Although initdb will attempt to create the specified data directory,
often it won’t have permission to do so, since the parent of the
desired data directory is often a root-owned directory. To set up an
arrangement like this, create an empty data directory as root, then use
chown to hand over ownership of that directory to the database user
account, then su to become the database user, and finally run initdb as
the database user.
This option specifies the authentication method for local users
used in pg_hba.conf. Do not use trust unless you trust all local
users on your system. Trust is the default for ease of installa-
This option specifies the directory where the database cluster
should be stored. This is the only information required by
initdb, but you can avoid writing it by setting the PGDATA envi-
ronment variable, which can be convenient since the database
server (postmaster) can find the database directory later by the
Selects the encoding of the template database. This will also be
the default encoding of any database you create later, unless
you override it there. The default is derived from the locale,
or SQL_ASCII if that does not work. The character sets supported
by the PostgreSQL server are described in the documentation.
Sets the default locale for the database cluster. If this option
is not specified, the locale is inherited from the environment
that initdb runs in. Locale support is described in the documen-
Like --locale, but only sets the locale in the specified cate-
Selects the user name of the database superuser. This defaults
to the name of the effective user running initdb. It is really
not important what the superuser’s name is, but one might choose
to keep the customary name postgres, even if the operating sys-
tem user’s name is different.
Makes initdb prompt for a password to give the database supe-
ruser. If you don’t plan on using password authentication, this
is not important. Otherwise you won’t be able to use password
authentication until you have a password set up.
Makes initdb read the database superuser’s password from a file.
The first line of the file is taken as the password.
Other, less commonly used, parameters are also available:
Print debugging output from the bootstrap backend and a few
other messages of lesser interest for the general public. The
bootstrap backend is the program initdb uses to create the cata-
log tables. This option generates a tremendous amount of
extremely boring output.
Specifies where initdb should find its input files to initialize
the database cluster. This is normally not necessary. You will
be told if you need to specify their location explicitly.
By default, when initdb determines that an error prevented it
from completely creating the database cluster, it removes any
files it may have created before discovering that it can’t fin-
ish the job. This option inhibits tidying-up and is thus useful
PGDATA Specifies the directory where the database cluster is to be
stored; may be overridden using the -D option.
Application 2005-01-17 INITDB(1)
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