kdwarn: Made Up of Wires

Note: visiting individual posts will show related follow-up and previous posts, if any exist.

Installing a Postgres Version Not in Your (Debian/Debian Derivative) Distro's Packages

April 15, 2025

Hello future me, you're welcome.

I found myself wanting to use the latest version of Postgres - 17 - but it was not available in the system packages for both my desktop (running Pop_OS! 22.04) and the server it would also be used on (running Debian 11). Not surprising, especially on the Debian side. However, what was surprising was how uncomplicated it was to install and configure. (I hesitate to say "simple".)

Much of this comes from Postgres itself, along with a couple Debian tools. On the Postgres side, they have excellent instructions at Linux Downloads (Debian). I am copying the manual instructions here for posterity (for whatever reason, the script they provide didn't work for me - I assume it was an issue with permissions/ssh/interactive-ness):

# Import the repository signing key:
sudo apt install postgresql-common curl ca-certificates
sudo install -d /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg
sudo curl -o /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.asc --fail https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc

# Create the repository configuration file:
. /etc/os-release
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.asc] https://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $VERSION_CODENAME-pgdg main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list"

# Update the package lists:
sudo apt update

# Install the latest version of PostgreSQL:
# If you want a specific version, use 'postgresql-17' or similar instead of 'postgresql'
sudo apt -y install postgresql  # (I used postgresql-17 here)

I had not previously been aware of the file at /etc/os-release. Sourcing the variables there with . /etc/os-release is something I'll have to remember. What I did was use $(lsb_release -cs) instead, but I think only because I originally missed that line somehow.

That's all well and good, but what if you found those instructions after following other, inferior instructions elsewhere and you have an aborted installation that still has lingering configuration files ... somewhere?

Here's where the Debian tools come in handy. One of the main issues I had was that the port was set to the wrong number (totally my fault, but regardless) and I couldn't figure out where it was. A combination of pg_ctlcluster (and specifically pg_ctlcluster 17 main status in my case), pg_dropcluster, and pg_createcluster to the rescue. Check the man pages for more info, but it's pretty straightforward. If you're like me and have multiple versions of Postgres hanging around, don't forget to specify the port with the -p flag.

NOTE: If you use Ansible, a lot of this work is available as a role in the repository for this website here.