Robert’s Working Blog

To install PostgreSQL, run the following command in the
command prompt:

sudo apt-get install postgresql

Once the installation is complete, you should configure the
PostgreSQL server based on your needs, although the default
configuration is viable.

By default, connection via TCP/IP is disabled.
PostgreSQL supports multiple client authentication methods.
By default, IDENT authentication method is used for postgres and local users.
Please refer
the PostgreSQL Administrator’s Guide.

The following discussion assumes that you wish to enable
TCP/IP connections and use the MD5 method for client
authentication. PostgreSQL configuration files are stored in the
/etc/postgresql/<version>/main
directory. For example, if you install PostgreSQL 8.3, the
configuration files are stored in the
/etc/postgresql/8.3/main directory.

	To configure ident authentication, add entries to the /etc/postgresql/8.3/main/pg_ident.conf file.

To enable TCP/IP connections, edit the file /etc/postgresql/8.3/main/postgresql.conf

Locate the line #listen_addresses = ‘localhost’ and change it to:

listen_addresses = 'localhost'

	To allow other computers to connect to your PostgreSQL server replace ‘localhost’ with the IP Address of your server.

You may also edit all other parameters, if you know what you are doing!
For details, refer to the configuration file or to the PostgreSQL documentation.

Now that we can connect to our PostgreSQL server, the next step is to
set a password for the postgres user. Run the following command at a terminal
prompt to connect to the default PostgreSQL template database:

sudo -u postgres psql template1

The above command connects to PostgreSQL database template1 as user
postgres. Once you connect to the PostgreSQL server, you will be
at a SQL prompt. You can run the following SQL command at the psql
prompt to configure the password for the user postgres.

ALTER USER postgres with encrypted password 'your_password';

After configuring the password, edit the file
/etc/postgresql/8.3/main/pg_hba.conf to use
MD5 authentication with the postgres user:

local   all         postgres                          md5 sameuser

Finally, you should restart the PostgreSQL service to
initialize the new configuration. From a terminal prompt enter the following to
restart PostgreSQL:

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.3 restart

	The above configuration is not complete by any means. Please refer the PostgreSQL Administrator’s Guide to configure more parameters.