Overview

This guide provides information on how to install PostgreSQL.

Prerequisites

In order to PostgreSQL software the following prerequisites should be in place.

• Linux CentOS or RedHat Ent version 6 or 7
• At least 16 GB memory
• At least 100GB of disk space allocated to /var directory

Installation process

The following section includes a step by step guide to complete PostgreSQL installation.

Install PostgreSQL packages

Use the following commands to install the required packages:

First install the appropriate repository for the CentOS version

For RHEL7 / CentOS 7

 $ sudo rpm -Uvh https://yum.postgresql.org/9.4/redhat/rhel-7-x86_64/pgdg-centos94-9.4-3.noarch.rpm

For RHEL6 / CentOS 6

 $ sudo rpm -Uvh http://yum.postgresql.org/9.4/redhat/rhel-6-x86_64/pgdg-redhat94-9.4-1.noarch.rpm

Use yum to install the PostgreSQL packages:

$ sudo yum install postgresql94-server postgresql94-contrib pgadmin3_94

Initialize the database for the first time, start PostgreSQL and set the service to automatically start when the server reboots:

For RHEL7 / CentOS 7

$ sudo /usr/pgsql-9.4/bin/postgresql94-setup initdb
$ sudo systemctl start postgresql-9.4.service
$ sudo systemctl enable postgresql-9.4.service

For RHEL6 / CentOS 6

$ sudo service postgresql-9.4 initdb
$ sudo service postgresql-9.4 start
$ sudo chkconfig postgresql-9.4 on

Recommended PostgreSQL configuration

This section provides some PostgreSQL configuration suggestions: 

The configuration file is located under directory: /var/lib/pgsql/9.4/data and it is called postgresql.conf

Edit the file and set the following parameters:

max_connections = 1000
max_prepared_transactions = 100
listen_addresses = '*'
shared_buffers = 4GB    #This is the maximum value otherwise set it
to 0.25% of the total RAM
effective_cache_size = 12GB         # effective_cache_size should be ~75%
of the RAM (if it's a dedicated server)
work_mem = 128MB
maintenance_work_mem = 4GB #see shared_buffers