pgenv help

# Check dependencies
pgenv check

# Show versions available to build
pgenv available

# Build PostgreSQL server
pgenv build 10.4

# Switch PostgreSQL version
pgenv switch 10.4

# Use PostgreSQL version
pgenv use 10.4

# Stop current version
pgenv stop

# Start current version
pgenv start

# Show server status
pgenv status

# Restart current version
pgenv restart

# Show current version
pgenv version

# List built versions
pgenv versions

# Clear current version
pgenv clear

# Remove PostgreSQL version
pgenv remove 8.0.25

pgenv is a simple utility to build and run different releases of PostgreSQL. This makes it easy to switch between versions when testing applications for compatibility.

1. Check out pgenv into ~/.pgenv.

   git clone https://github.com/theory/pgenv.git ~/.pgenv

2. Add ~/.pgenv/bin and ~/.pgenv/pgsql/bin to your $PATH for access to the pgenv command-line utility and all the programs provided by PostgreSQL:

   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.pgenv/bin:$HOME/.pgenv/pgsql/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

   Ubuntu note: Modify your ~/.profile instead of ~/.bash_profile.

   Zsh note: Modify your ~/.zshrc file instead of ~/.bash_profile.

3. Restart your shell as a login shell so the path changes take effect. You can now begin using pgenv.

   exec $SHELL -l

4. Build a version of PostgreSQL:

   pgenv build 10.4

By default, all versions of PostgreSQL will be built in the root of the project directory (generally in ~/.pgenv.). If you'd like them to live elsewhere, set the $PGENV_ROOT environment variable to the appropriate directory.

It is possible to configure which programs, flags and languages to build using a configuration file before the program launches the build. For a more detailed configuration, see the pgenv config command below.

You can use a local PostgreSQL git repo instead of downloading tarballs for the build step by setting the external $PGENV_LOCAL_POSTGRESQL_REPO environment variable to the appropriate absolute path.

It is possible to run custom script when particular events happen. The purpose is to let the user to configure the cluster as much as she want, for instance installing extension or pre-loading data.

Custom scripts are driven by a set of configuration variables as follows:

• PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTINSTALL is an executable script run as soon as the build finishes. The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow. The script gets the version of PostgreSQL being installed as first argument.

• PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTINITDB is an executable script run as soon as the use command ends the initdb phase, that happens only the PGDATA has not been initialized (i.e., on very first use). The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow. The script gets the current PGDATA path as first argument. Please note that this script runs with the cluster turned off.

• PGENV_SCRIPT_FIRSTSTART is an executable script run at the very first of a freshly installed cluster. Typically, this happens immediatly after the initdb phase, after the cluster has been succesfully started. Please note that this script is run only once in the whole cluster's life, that means it will not run at every cluster start action, but only on the very first start of the cluster. Therefore, this script can be used to initialize the cluster with custmo data (e.g., creating users, databases, populating tables and so on).

• PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTSTART is an executable script executed each time an instances is started, that is start is executed. The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow. The script gets the current PGDATA path as first argument.

• PGENV_SCRIPT_PRESTOP is an executable script executed before an instance is stopped, that is before the stop command is executed. The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow, and if the script generates errors they are ignored, so that the cluster is going to be stopped anyway. The script gets the current PGDATA path as first argument.

• PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTSTOP is an executable script executed each time an instance is stopped, that is the stop command is executed. The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow. The script gets the current PGDATA path as first argument.

• PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTRESTART is an executable script executed each time an instance is restarted, that is the restart command is executed. The return value of the script does not affect the pgenv workflow. The script gets the current PGDATA path as first argument.

The above configuration variables can be set in the configuration file or on the fly, for instance:

$ export PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTSTART=/usr/local/bin/load_data.sh
$ pgenv start 12.0

It is worth noting that the start, restart and post script are not shared between similar events: for instance the PGENV_SCRIPT_POSTSTOP is not executed if the user issues a restart command (even if that implies somehow a cluster stop).

Please note that running external scripts can result in damages and crashes in the pgenv workflow. In the future, more hooks to run scripts could be added.

You can upgrade your installation to the cutting-edge version at any time with a simple git pull.

$ cd ~/.pgenv
$ git pull

• env - Sets environment for execution
• bash - Command shell interpreter
• curl - Used to download files
• sed, grep, cat, tar, sort, tr, uname, tail - General Unix command line utilities
• patch - For patching versions that need patching
• make - Builds PostgreSQL

Optional dependencies:

• Perl 5 - To build PL/Perl
• Python - To build PL/Python

Like git, the pgenv command delegates to subcommands based on its first argument.

Some commands require you to specify the PostgreSQL version to act on. You can specify the version the command applies to by either entering the PostgreSQL version number or by specifying any of the special keywords:

• current or version to indicate the currently selected PostgreSQL version;
• earliest to indicate the oldest installed version (excluding beta versions);
• newest to indicate the newest installed version (excluding beta versions).

It is important to note that earliest and latest have nothing to do with the time you installed PostgreSQL by means of pgenv: they refer only to PostgreSQL stable versions. To better clarify this, the following snippet shows you which aliases point to which versions in an example installation.

9.6.19                 <-- earliest (also earliest 9.6)
9.6.20      <-- latest 9.6
12.2        <-- earliest 12
12.4        <-- latest 12
13beta2
13.0                   <-- latest (also latest 13)

The subcommands are:

Sets the version of PostgreSQL to be used in all shells by symlinking its directory to ~/$PGENV_ROOT/pgsql and starting it. Initializes the data directory if none exists. If another version is currently active, it will be stopped before switching. If the specified version is already in use, the use command won't stop it, but will initialize its data directory and starts it if it's not already running.

$ pgenv use 10.4
waiting for server to shut down.... done
server stopped
waiting for server to start.... done
server started
PostgreSQL 10.4 started

The use command supports the special keywords earliest and latest to respectively indicate the oldest PostgreSQL version installed and the newest one. It is also possible to indicate a major version to narrow the scope of the special keywords. As an example:

pgenv use latest 10

will select the most recent PostgreSQL version of the 10 series installed.

Sets the version of PostgreSQL to be used in all shells by symlinking its directory to $PGENV_ROOT/pgsql. Contrary to pgenv use this command does not manage a database for you. Meaning, it will not start, stop and initialize a postgres database with the given version. Instead it simply changes the environment to a different version of PostgreSQL. This can be useful if the user has other tools to automate the provisioning and lifecycle of a database.

$ pgenv switch 10.4

Lists all PostgreSQL versions known to pgenv, and shows an asterisk next to the currently active version (if any). The first column reports versions available for use by pgenv and the second lists the subdirectory of $PGENV_ROOT in which the each version is installed:

$ pgenv versions
      10.4      pgsql-10.4
      11beta3   pgsql-11beta3
      9.5.13    pgsql-9.5.13
  *   9.6.9     pgsql-9.6.9

In this example, versions 9.5.13, 9.6.9, 10.4, and 11beta3 are available for use, and the * indicates that 9.6.10 is the currently active version. Each version is installed in a pgsql- subdirectory of $PGENV_ROOT.

Displays the currently active PostgreSQL version.

$ pgenv current
10.4

Please note that version is a command synonym for version:

$ pgenv version
10.4

Clears the currently active version of PostgreSQL. If the current version is running, clear will stop it before clearing it.

$ pgenv clear
waiting for server to shut down.... done
server stopped
PostgreSQL stopped
PostgreSQL cleared

Downloads and builds the specified version of PostgreSQL and its contrib modules, as far back as version 8.0. It is possible to instrument the build process to patch the source tree, see the section on patching later on. If the version is already built, it will not be rebuilt; use clear to remove an existing version before building it again.

$ pgenv build 10.3
# [Curl, configure, and make output elided]
PostgreSQL 10.3 built

The build phase can be customized via a configuration file, in the case the system does not find a configuration file when the build is executed, a warning is shown to the user to remind she can edit a configuration file and start over the build process:

$ pgenv build 10.3
  ...
WARNING: no configuration file found for version 10.3
HINT: if you wish to customize the build process please
stop the execution within 5 seconds (CTRL-c) and run
    pgenv config write 10.3 && pgenv config edit 10.3
adjust 'configure' and 'make' options and flags and run again
    pgenv build 10.3

Within the configuration file it is possible to instrument the build phase from the configuration to the actual build. For instance, in order to build with PL/Perl, it is possible to configure the variable PGENV_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS adding --with-perl. Or say you need SSL support and to tell teh compiler to use Homebrew-installed OpenSSL. Edit it something like:

PGENV_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS=(
    --with-perl
    --with-openssl
    'CFLAGS=-I/opt/local/opt/openssl/include -I/opt/local/opt/libxml2/include'
    'LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/opt/openssl/lib -L/opt/local/opt/libxml2/lib'
)

Please note that it is possible to pass argument variables within the command line to instrument the build phase. As an example, the following is a possible workflow to configure and build a customized 10.5 instance:

$ pgenv config write 10.5
pgenv config edit 10.5
# adjust PGENV_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS

$ pgenv build 10.5

In the case you need to specify a particular variable, such as the Perl interpreter, pass it on the command line at the time of build:

PERL=/usr/local/my-fancy-perl pgenv build 10.5

At the end of a build (or a rebuild) phase, pgenv creates a configuration file for the specific PostgreSQL version. If the file already exists, due to a prior build or rebuild action, the file will be automatically overwritten. In order to avoid the creation or overwriting of the configuration file, it is possible to set the environment variable PGENV_WRITE_CONFIGURATION_FILE_AUTOMATICALLY to a false value (either 0 or NO). If the variable is not set at all, or it is set to a true value (e.g., 1, YES, etc.) the configuration file will be created or overwritten (if it already exists).

pgenv can patch the source tree before the build process starts. In particular, the patch/ folder can contain a set of index files and patch to apply. The process searches for an index file corresponding to the PostgreSQL version to build, and if found applies all the patches contained into the index.

Index files are named after the PostgreSQL version and the Operating System; in particular the name of an index file is composed as patch.<version>.<os> where version is the PostgreSQL version number (or a part of it) and os is the Operating System. As an example, patch.8.1.4.Linux represents the index used when building PostgreSQL 8.1.4 on a Linux machine. To provide more flexibility, the system searches for an index that is named after the exact PostgreSQL version and Operating System or a mix of possible combinations of those. As an example, in the case of the PostgreSQL version 8.1.4 the index files is searched among one of the following:

$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8.1.4.Linux
$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8.1.4
$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8.1.Linux
$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8.1
$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8.Linux
$PGENV_ROOT/patch/index/patch.8

This allows you to specify an index for pretty much any combination or grouping desired. The first index file that matches wins and it is the only one used for the build process. If no index file is found at all, no patching is applied on the source tree.

The index file must contain a list of patches to apply, that is file names (either absolute or relative to the patch/ subfolder). Each individual file is applied thru patch(1).

It is possible to specify a particular index file, that means avoid the automatic index selection, by either setting the PGENV_PATCH_INDEX variable on the command line or in the configuration file. As an example

$ PGENV_PATCH_INDEX=/src/my-patch-list.txt pgenv build 10.5

The build command accepts the special keywords earliest and latest as indicators of the version to build. The logic is as follows:

• latest triggers the build of the very last available PostgreSQL version available for download;
• earliest triggers the build of the very first available PostgreSQL version, that is 1.08 (and probably is not what you are looking for);
• latest xx where xx is a PostgreSQL major version number (e.g., 13) triggers the build of the latest available version in such major version branch (e.g., 13.1);
• earliest xx where xx is a PostgreSQL major version number (e.g., 13) triggers the build of the earliest available version in such major version branch (e.g., 13.0).

The latest and earliest keywords work only with the build command and not with the rebuild command.

The rebuild command allows the rebuilding from sources of a specific PostgreSQL version. The PGDATA directory will not be deleted if already initialized via initdb. However, in the case the PostgreSQL instance to rebuild is currently in use, the rebuild command will not proceed. This is meant to prevent the user to change the binaries of a in-use PostgreSQL cluster.

The configuration will follow the same rules adopted in build, which means if a configuration file is present it will be loaded, otherwise the system will claim about such file proposing to create one.

In the case a specific version has never been built, rebuild acts exactly as build.

Removes the specified version of PostgreSQL unless it is the currently-active version. Use the clear command to clear the active version before removing it.

$ pgenv remove 10.3
PostgreSQL 10.3 removed

The command removes the version, data directory, source code and configuration.

The remove command supports the special keywords earliest and latest to respectively indicate the oldest PostgreSQL version installed and the newest one. It is also possible to indicate a major version to narrow the scope of the special keywords. As an example:

pgenv remove latest 10

will remove the most recent PostgreSQL version of the 10 series installed.

Starts the currently active version of PostgreSQL if it's not already running. Initializes the data directory if none exists.

$ pgenv start
PostgreSQL started

It is possible to specify flags to pass to pg_ctl(1) when performing the START action, setting the PGENV_START_OPTIONS array in the configuration. Such options must not include the data directory, nor the log file.

Stops the currently active version of PostgreSQL.

$ pgenv stop
PostgreSQL 10.5 stopped

It is possible to specify flags to pass to pg_ctl(1) when performing the stop action, setting the PGENV_STOP_OPTIONS array in the configuration.

Restarts the currently active version of PostgreSQL, or starts it if it's not already running.

$ pgenv restart
PostgreSQL 10.1 restarted
Logging to pgsql/data/server.log

It is possible to specify flags to pass to pg_ctl(1) when performing the restart action, setting the PGENV_RESTART_OPTIONS array in the configuration.

Indicates whether an instance is already running or is stopped. In case an instance is not currently in use, the script complains and exits immediately. Furthermore, you can use pgenv current to see which version is in use.

$ pgenv status

The above command results in an output like the following:

server is running (PID: 81803)
/opt/pgsql-16.0/bin/postgres "-D" "/opt/pgsql/data"

Same result can be achieved by running pg_ctl as follows:

$ $PG_ROOT/bin/pg_ctl status -D $PG_DATA

Where PG_ROOT is the path to your PostgreSQL installation directory, and PG_DATA is the path to your database directory.

Shows all the versions of PostgreSQL available to download and build. Handy to help you finding a version to pass to the build command. Note that the available command produces copious output.

$ pgenv available

            Available PostgreSQL Versions
========================================================
                  ...
 
                    PostgreSQL 9.6
    ------------------------------------------------
    9.6.0   9.6.1   9.6.2   9.6.3   9.6.4   9.6.5
    9.6.6   9.6.7   9.6.8   9.6.9   9.6.10

                    PostgreSQL 10
    ------------------------------------------------
    10.0    10.1    10.2    10.3    10.4    10.5

                    PostgreSQL 11
    ------------------------------------------------
     11.0    11.1    11.2    11.3    11.4    11.5   
     11.6    11.7    11.8    11.9    11.10   11.11  
     11.12   11.13  

                     PostgreSQL 12
    ------------------------------------------------
     12.0    12.1    12.2    12.3    12.4    12.5   
     12.6    12.7    12.8   

                     PostgreSQL 13
    ------------------------------------------------
     13.0    13.1    13.2    13.3    13.4   

                     PostgreSQL 14
    ------------------------------------------------
     14beta1  14beta2  14beta3  14rc1   14.0   

     

The versions are organized and sorted by major release number. Any listed version may be passed to the build command.

To limit the list to versions for specific major releases, pass them to available. For example, to list only the 9.6 and 10 available versions:

$ pgenv available 10 9.6
            Available PostgreSQL Versions
========================================================

                    PostgreSQL 9.6
    ------------------------------------------------
    9.6.0   9.6.1   9.6.2   9.6.3   9.6.4   9.6.5
    9.6.6   9.6.7   9.6.8   9.6.9   9.6.10

                    PostgreSQL 10
    ------------------------------------------------
    10.0    10.1    10.2    10.3    10.4    10.5

Checks the list of commands required to download and build PostgreSQL. Prints a result for each, with either the path to the command or an error reporting that the command was not found.

Outputs a brief usage statement and summary of available commands, like the following:

$ pgenv help
Usage: pgenv <command> [<args>]

The pgenv commands are:
    use        Set and start the current PostgreSQL version
    start      Start the current PostgreSQL server
    stop       Stop the current PostgreSQL server
    restart    Restart the current PostgreSQL server
    status     Show the current PostgreSQL server status
    switch     Set the current PostgreSQL version
    clear      Stop and unset the current PostgreSQL version
    build      Build a specific version of PostgreSQL
    rebuild    Re-build a specific version of PostgreSQL
    remove     Remove a specific version of PostgreSQL
    version    Show the current PostgreSQL version
    current    Same as 'version'
    versions   List all PostgreSQL versions available to pgenv
    help       Show this usage statement and command summary
    available  Show which versions can be downloaded
    check      Check all program dependencies
    config     View, edit, delete the program configuration
    log        Inspects the log of the cluster, if exist.

For full documentation, see: https://github.com/theory/pgenv#readme

This is 'pgenv' version 1.0.0 [5839e72]

The last line of the 'help' shows the pgenv version number and, if git is available, the short commit hash (this can be useful when reporting bugs and filling issue requests). Please note that, in order to print out the git HEAD information, the pgenv must be able to find a git executable (i.e., it must be in your PATH) and the PGENV_ROOT must be a git checkout directory.

View, set, and delete configuration variables, both globally or for specific versions of PostgreSQL. Stores the configuration in Bash files, one for each version, as well as a default configuration. If pgenv cannot find a configuration variable in a version-specific configuration file, it will look in the default configuration. If it doesn't find it there, it tries to guess the appropriate values, or falls back on its own defaults.

The config command accepts the following subcommands:

• show prints the current or specified version configuration
• init produces a configuration file from scratch, with default settings
• write store the specified version configuration
• edit opens the current or specified version configuration file in your favourite text editor (Using $EDITOR, e.g: export EDITOR=/usr/bin/emacs)
• delete removes the specified configuration
• migrate is a command used to change the configuration format between versions of pgenv
• path accepts a version number and prints on standard output the path to such version configuration path

Each sub-command accepts a PostgreSQL version number (e.g., 10.5) or a special keyword:

• current or version tells pgenv to use the currently active version of PostgreSQL
• default tells pgenv to use the default configuration;
• earliest and latest to indicate respectively the oldest or newest version of PostgreSQL installed. As in other commands, these two keywords can be combined with a PostgreSQL major version number to point to the configuration of the earliest/latest version within that major number.

If no version is explicitly passed to any of the config subcommands, the program will work against the currently active version of PostgreSQL.

In order to start with a default configuration, use the write subcommand:

$ pgenv config write default
pgenv configuration file ~/.pgenv/config/default.conf written

A subsequent show displays the defaults:

$ pgenv config show default
# Default configuration
# pgenv configuration for PostgreSQL
# File: /home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/config/default.conf
# ---------------------------------------------------
# pgenv configuration created on mer 12 set 2018, 08.35.52, CEST

# Enables debug output
# PGENV_DEBUG=''

###### Build settings #####
# Make command to use for build
# PGENV_MAKE=''

# Make flags
PGENV_MAKE_OPTIONS=(-j3)

# Configure flags
# PGENV_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS=( )
# ...

##### Runtime options #####
# Path to the cluster log file
PGENV_LOG='/home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/pgsql/data/server.log'

# Cluster administrator user
PGENV_PG_USER='postgres'

# Initdb flags
PGENV_INITDB_OPTIONS=(-U postgres --locale en_US.UTF-8 --encoding UNICODE)

# ...

You can edit the file and adjust parameters to your needs.

In order to create a configuration file for a specific version, it is possible to use the init or write commands. If no prior default configuration exists, the commands do the same, that is they create a from-scratch configuration file. If a default configuration exists, the write command will "clone" such configuration in a PostgreSQL version specific configuration file, while init will create a configuration file with default settings. After a configuration file has been created by init, the write or edit commands must be used against it, that means an existing configuration file cannot be inited more than once.

$ pgenv config write 10.5
pgenv configuration file [~/.pgenv/config/10.5.conf] written

Each time pgenv writes a configuration file, it first creates a backup with the suffix .backup and a timestamp string related to when the backup file has been created.

Use the edit subcommand to edit a configuration file in your favorite editor:

pgenv config edit 10.5

The edit command will start your favorite editor, that is whatever it is set within the EDITOR variable. If such variable is not set you will be warned. Use the delete subcommand to delete a configuration:

$ pgenv config delete 10.5
Configuration file ~/.pgenv/config/10.5.conf (and backup) deleted

The delete subcommand will not attempt to delete the default configuration file, since it can be shared among different PostgreSQL versions. However, if it is explicitly specified default as the version to delete (i.e., config delete default), the default configuration file will be deleted.

$ pgenv config delete
Cannot delete default configuration while version configurations exist
To remove it anyway, delete ~/.pgenv/config/default.conf.

The delete subcommand deletes both the configuration file and its backup copy. The pgenv remove command also deletes any configuration for the removed version.

Please note that since commit 5839e721 the file name of the default configuration file has changed. In the case you want to convert your default configuration file, please issue a rename like the following

cp .pgenv.conf .pgenv.default.conf

The migrate command allows pgenv to change the configuration format of the files between different releases. For example, it must be run if you are upgrading pgenv from a version before 1.2.1 [811ba05], that changed the location of configuration files into the config subdirectory.

pgenv config migrate
Migrated 3 configuration file(s) from previous versions (0 not migrated)
Your configuration file(s) are now into [~/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/config]

The path command accepts a specific version that will be used to compute the configuration file name related to such version, printing out the resulting path to the configuration file. This allows the user to set the PGENV_CONFIGURATION_FILE environment variable to a specific path to a custom configuration file, so that other subsequent invocations of pgenv will refer to such path. As an example, this is a way to exploit the default configuration file for different versions of PostgreSQL. In order to export the variable to a specific custom file location you can do, in your terminal, something like the following:

export PGENV_CONFIGURATION_FILE=$( pgenv config path 15.4 )

The above will set the environment variable PGENV_CONFIGURATION_FILE to the configuration file for the PostgreSQL version 15.4. If you want to use the default configuration file, substitute the version number with the special default keyowrd, for example:

export PGENV_CONFIGURATION_FILE=pgenv config path default

The log command provides a dump of the cluster log, if it exists, so that you don't have to worry about the exact log location. The log is dumped using the tail command, and every option passed to the command line is passed thru tail. As an example:

$ pgenv log     
Dumping the content of /home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/pgsql/data/server.log 

LOG:  could not bind IPv4 address "127.0.0.1": Address already in use
HINT:  Is another postmaster already running on port 5432? If not, wait a few seconds and retry.
WARNING:  could not create listen socket for "localhost"
FATAL:  could not create any TCP/IP sockets
LOG:  database system is shut down
LOG:  starting PostgreSQL 12.1 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Ubuntu 8.3.0-6ubuntu1) 8.3.0, 64-bit
LOG:  listening on IPv4 address "127.0.0.1", port 5432
LOG:  listening on Unix socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"
LOG:  database system was shut down at 2020-08-28 12:57:33 CEST
LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections

The above is equivalent to manually executing

tail ~/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/pgsql/data/server.log

It is possible to pass arguments to tail as command line flags:

$ pgenv log -n 2
Dumping the content of /home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/pgsql/data/server.log 

LOG:  database system was shut down at 2020-08-28 12:57:33 CEST
LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections

which results in executing

tail -n 2 /home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv/pgsql/data/server.log 

and of course, you can inspect the log of live system continuously:

pgenv log -f

Please use GitHub issues.

• plenv is a binary manager for Perl, and was the inspiration for pgenv.
• plenv, in turn, was inspired by and based on rbenv, a binary manager for Ruby.
• Pgenv works similarly, but requires PostgreSQL manually compiled from its Git repo.

Distributed under The MIT License; see LICENSE.md for terms.