Nick's Blog

Working on a project for which I am using MySQL. As much as I love the thing it has been scaring me a little since Oracle bought them. They have pledged to keep the project open-source friendly a while back but I still worry. PostgreSQL seems like it might be a good fit for me so here are the steps I took to get it up and running from source on Ubuntu 13.04 Server.

• Make sure our required tools are installed:

  
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libreadline6-dev gcc make


• Download the latest source and extract:

  
wget ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.2.x/postgresql-9.2.x.tar.bz2
tar xjfv postgresql-9.2.x.tar.bz2


  Note
  I am using v9.2.4 for this example as it was the latest at the time of this writing. Simply replace x with your version number.

• Compile and install:

  
cd postgresql-9.2.x/
./configure
make -j y world
sudo make install-world


  Note
  Replace y with the number of processor cores you would like to use. This step generally does not take long so if you wanted to omit -j and its argument all together that would also work.

• Copy start up script:

  
sudo cp contrib/start-scripts/linux /etc/init.d/postgresql


• Remove working directory:

  
cd ../
rm -rf postgresql-9.2.x/
rm postgresql-9.2.x.tar.bz2


• Add user:

  
sudo useradd postgres


• Create data directories:

  
sudo mkdir /var/lib/postgresql/
sudo chown postgres:postgres /var/lib/postgresql/


  Create data:

  
sudo su - postgres -c "/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /var/lib/postgresql/"


• Create configuration directory:

  
sudo mkdir /etc/postgresql/
sudo chown postgres:postgres /etc/postgresql/


  Move configuration:

  
sudo mv /var/lib/postgresql/postgresql.conf /var/lib/postgresql/pg_hba.conf /var/lib/postgresql/pg_ident.conf /etc/postgresql/


  Open postgresql.conf:

  
sudo nano /etc/postgresql/postgresql.conf


  Change postgresql.conf:

  
data_directory = '/var/lib/postgresql/'
external_pid_file = '/var/run/postgresql.pid'


  Note
  These are the bare minimum changes. You will probably want to scan the file and change it to better suit your needs.

• Open start up script:

  
sudo nano /etc/init.d/postgresql


  Change start up script:

  
PGDATA="/etc/postgresql/"
PGLOG="/var/log/postgresql.log"


  Under ## EDIT FROM HERE add:

  
PGGROUP=postgres
PGPID="/var/run/postgresql.pid"


  Above su - $PGUSER -c "$DAEMON -D '$PGDATA' &" >>$PGLOG 2>&1, under start) add:

  
touch $PGPID
chown $PGUSER:$PGGROUP $PGPID


  Under su - $PGUSER -c "$PGCTL stop -D '$PGDATA' -s -m fast", under stop) add:

  
rm $PGPID


• Make start up script executable:

  
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/postgresql
sudo update-rc.d postgresql defaults


• Start service:

  
sudo service postgresql start


• [Optional] Make commands available to all users:

  
sudo ln -s /usr/local/pgsql/bin/* /usr/local/bin/


  [Optional] Make C includes and libraries available to all users:

  
sudo ln -s /usr/local/pgsql/include/* /usr/local/include/
sudo ln -s /usr/local/pgsql/lib/* /usr/local/lib/
sudo ldconfig


  Note
  These just make life slightly easier. If you prefer you can always just call everything by their absolute paths or put them in your $PATH.

---

Sources
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/installation.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/server-start.html

Working on a project for which I am using MySQL. As much as I love my relational databases they may not always be the best tool for the job. As such, for the first time, I am evaluating other solutions. Redis seems like it might be a good fit for me so here are the steps I took to get it up and running from source on Ubuntu 13.04 Server.

• Make sure our required tools are installed:

  
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install make gcc


• Download the latest source and extract:

  
wget http://redis.googlecode.com/files/redis-2.6.x.tar.gz
tar xzfv redis-2.6.x.tar.gz


  Note
  I am using v2.6.14 for this example as it was the latest at the time of this writing. Simply replace x with your version number.

• Compile and install:

  
cd redis-2.6.x/
make -j y
sudo make install


  Note
  Replace y with the number of processor cores you would like to use. This step generally does not take long so if you wanted to omit -j and its argument all together that would also work.

• Copy and open Redis configuration:

  
sudo mkdir /etc/redis/
sudo cp redis.conf /etc/redis/
sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf


  Change the following options:

  
daemonize yes
dir /var/lib/redis/
syslog-enabled yes
syslog-ident redis
syslog-facility local0


  Note
  These are the bare minimum changes. You will probably want to scan the file and change it to better suit your needs.

• Remove working directory:

  
cd ../
rm -rf redis-2.6.x/
rm redis-2.6.x.tar.gz


• Add user:

  
sudo useradd redis


• Create data directories:

  
sudo mkdir /var/lib/redis/
sudo chown redis:redis /var/lib/redis/
sudo mkdir /var/log/redis/
sudo chown redis:redis /var/log/redis/


• Setup start up script:

  
sudo nano /etc/init.d/redis-server


  Within this file add the following and save/close:

  
#! /bin/sh

  ### BEGIN INIT INFO
  # Provides: redis-server
  # Required-Start: $syslog $remote_fs
  # Required-Stop: $syslog $remote_fs
  # Should-Start: $local_fs
  # Should-Stop: $local_fs
  # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
  # Default-Stop: 0 1 6
  # Short-Description: redis-server - Persistent key-value db
  # Description: redis-server - Persistent key-value db
  ### END INIT INFO

  PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
  DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/redis-server
  DAEMON_ARGS=/etc/redis/redis.conf
  NAME=redis-server
  DESC=redis-server
  PIDFILE=/var/run/redis.pid

  test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

  set -e

  case "$1" in
  start)
  echo -n "Starting $DESC: "

  touch $PIDFILE
  chown redis:redis $PIDFILE

  if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --umask 007 --pidfile $PIDFILE --chuid redis:redis --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_ARGS
  then
  echo "$NAME."
  else
  echo "failed"
  fi

  ;;

  stop)
  echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "

  if start-stop-daemon --stop --retry 10 --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON
  then
  echo "$NAME."
  else
  echo "failed"
  fi

  rm -f $PIDFILE

  ;;

  restart|force-reload)
  ${0} stop
  ${0} start

  ;;

  status)
  echo -n "$DESC is "

  if start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --signal 0 --name ${NAME} --pidfile ${PIDFILE}
  then
  echo "running"
  else
  echo "not running"

  exit 1
  fi

  ;;

  *)
  echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2

  exit 1

  ;;
  esac

  exit 0


  Make script executable:

  
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/redis-server
sudo update-rc.d redis-server defaults


• Start the server:

  
sudo service redis-server start


---

Notes

• I have not experimented with this on a 32-bit machine but I doubt it would be very useful for anything other than seeing what is what. If you are going to use this in anything remotely resembling a production environment I would use a 64-bit machine without question.
• I disabled snapshotting for my tests as I will not need it. If you end up using it– such as in the default configuration– you might want to add vm.overcommit_memory = 1 to /etc/sysctl.conf.

Sources
http://www.redis.io/download/
http://www.denofubiquity.com/nosql/412/