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17.4. Building and Installation with Meson #

   17.4.1. Short Version
   17.4.2. Installation Procedure
   17.4.3. meson setup Options
   17.4.4. meson Build Targets

17.4.1. Short Version #

meson setup build --prefix=/usr/local/pgsql
cd build
ninja
su
ninja install
adduser postgres
mkdir -p /usr/local/pgsql/data
chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
su - postgres
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data -l logfile start
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb test
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql test

   The long version is the rest of this section.

17.4.2. Installation Procedure #

    1. Configuration
       The first step of the installation procedure is to configure the
       build tree for your system and choose the options you would like.
       To create and configure the build directory, you can start with the
       meson setup command.
meson setup build

       The setup command takes a builddir and a srcdir argument. If no
       srcdir is given, Meson will deduce the srcdir based on the current
       directory and the location of meson.build. The builddir is
       mandatory.
       Running meson setup loads the build configuration file and sets up
       the build directory. Additionally, you can also pass several build
       options to Meson. Some commonly used options are mentioned in the
       subsequent sections. For example:
# configure with a different installation prefix
meson setup build --prefix=/home/user/pg-install

# configure to generate a debug build
meson setup build --buildtype=debug

# configure to build with OpenSSL support
meson setup build -Dssl=openssl

       Setting up the build directory is a one-time step. To reconfigure
       before a new build, you can simply use the meson configure command
meson configure -Dcassert=true

       meson configure's commonly used command-line options are explained
       in Section 17.4.3.
    2. Build
       By default, Meson uses the Ninja build tool. To build PostgreSQL
       from source using Meson, you can simply use the ninja command in
       the build directory.
ninja

       Ninja will automatically detect the number of CPUs in your computer
       and parallelize itself accordingly. You can override the number of
       parallel processes used with the command line argument -j.
       It should be noted that after the initial configure step, ninja is
       the only command you ever need to type to compile. No matter how
       you alter your source tree (short of moving it to a completely new
       location), Meson will detect the changes and regenerate itself
       accordingly. This is especially handy if you have multiple build
       directories. Often one of them is used for development (the "debug"
       build) and others only every now and then (such as a "static
       analysis" build). Any configuration can be built just by cd'ing to
       the corresponding directory and running Ninja.
       If you'd like to build with a backend other than ninja, you can use
       configure with the --backend option to select the one you want to
       use and then build using meson compile. To learn more about these
       backends and other arguments you can provide to ninja, you can
       refer to the Meson documentation.
    3. Regression Tests
       If you want to test the newly built server before you install it,
       you can run the regression tests at this point. The regression
       tests are a test suite to verify that PostgreSQL runs on your
       machine in the way the developers expected it to. Type:
meson test

       (This won't work as root; do it as an unprivileged user.) See
       Chapter 31 for detailed information about interpreting the test
       results. You can repeat this test at any later time by issuing the
       same command.
       To run pg_regress and pg_isolation_regress tests against a running
       postgres instance, specify --setup running as an argument to meson
       test.
    4. Installing the Files

Note
       If you are upgrading an existing system be sure to read
       Section 18.6, which has instructions about upgrading a cluster.
       Once PostgreSQL is built, you can install it by simply running the
       ninja install command.
ninja install

       This will install files into the directories that were specified in
       Step 1. Make sure that you have appropriate permissions to write
       into that area. You might need to do this step as root.
       Alternatively, you can create the target directories in advance and
       arrange for appropriate permissions to be granted. The standard
       installation provides all the header files needed for client
       application development as well as for server-side program
       development, such as custom functions or data types written in C.
       ninja install should work for most cases, but if you'd like to use
       more options (such as --quiet to suppress extra output), you could
       also use meson install instead. You can learn more about meson
       install and its options in the Meson documentation.

   Uninstallation:  To undo the installation, you can use the ninja
   uninstall command.

   Cleaning:  After the installation, you can free disk space by removing
   the built files from the source tree with the ninja clean command.

17.4.3. meson setup Options #

   meson setup's command-line options are explained below. This list is
   not exhaustive (use meson configure --help to get one that is). The
   options not covered here are meant for advanced use-cases, and are
   documented in the standard Meson documentation. These arguments can be
   used with meson setup as well.

17.4.3.1. Installation Locations #

   These options control where ninja install (or meson install) will put
   the files. The --prefix option (example Section 17.4.1) is sufficient
   for most cases. If you have special needs, you can customize the
   installation subdirectories with the other options described in this
   section. Beware however that changing the relative locations of the
   different subdirectories may render the installation non-relocatable,
   meaning you won't be able to move it after installation. (The man and
   doc locations are not affected by this restriction.) For relocatable
   installs, you might want to use the -Drpath=false option described
   later.

   --prefix=PREFIX #
          Install all files under the directory PREFIX instead of
          /usr/local/pgsql (on Unix based systems) or current drive
          letter:/usr/local/pgsql (on Windows). The actual files will be
          installed into various subdirectories; no files will ever be
          installed directly into the PREFIX directory.

   --bindir=DIRECTORY #
          Specifies the directory for executable programs. The default is
          PREFIX/bin.

   --sysconfdir=DIRECTORY #
          Sets the directory for various configuration files, PREFIX/etc
          by default.

   --libdir=DIRECTORY #
          Sets the location to install libraries and dynamically loadable
          modules. The default is PREFIX/lib.

   --includedir=DIRECTORY #
          Sets the directory for installing C and C++ header files. The
          default is PREFIX/include.

   --datadir=DIRECTORY #
          Sets the directory for read-only data files used by the
          installed programs. The default is PREFIX/share. Note that this
          has nothing to do with where your database files will be placed.

   --localedir=DIRECTORY #
          Sets the directory for installing locale data, in particular
          message translation catalog files. The default is
          DATADIR/locale.

   --mandir=DIRECTORY #
          The man pages that come with PostgreSQL will be installed under
          this directory, in their respective manx subdirectories. The
          default is DATADIR/man.

Note

   Care has been taken to make it possible to install PostgreSQL into
   shared installation locations (such as /usr/local/include) without
   interfering with the namespace of the rest of the system. First, the
   string “/postgresql” is automatically appended to datadir, sysconfdir,
   and docdir, unless the fully expanded directory name already contains
   the string “postgres” or “pgsql”. For example, if you choose /usr/local
   as prefix, the documentation will be installed in
   /usr/local/doc/postgresql, but if the prefix is /opt/postgres, then it
   will be in /opt/postgres/doc. The public C header files of the client
   interfaces are installed into includedir and are namespace-clean. The
   internal header files and the server header files are installed into
   private directories under includedir. See the documentation of each
   interface for information about how to access its header files.
   Finally, a private subdirectory will also be created, if appropriate,
   under libdir for dynamically loadable modules.

17.4.3.2. PostgreSQL Features #

   The options described in this section enable building of various
   optional PostgreSQL features. Most of these require additional
   software, as described in Section 17.1, and will be automatically
   enabled if the required software is found. You can change this behavior
   by manually setting these features to enabled to require them or
   disabled to not build with them.

   To specify PostgreSQL-specific options, the name of the option must be
   prefixed by -D.

   -Dnls={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enables or disables Native Language Support (NLS), that is, the
          ability to display a program's messages in a language other than
          English. Defaults to auto and will be enabled automatically if
          an implementation of the Gettext API is found.

   -Dplperl={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build the PL/Perl server-side language. Defaults to auto.

   -Dplpython={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build the PL/Python server-side language. Defaults to auto.

   -Dpltcl={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build the PL/Tcl server-side language. Defaults to auto.

   -Dtcl_version=TCL_VERSION #
          Specifies the Tcl version to use when building PL/Tcl.

   -Dicu={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with support for the ICU library, enabling use of ICU
          collation features (see Section 23.2). Defaults to auto and
          requires the ICU4C package to be installed. The minimum required
          version of ICU4C is currently 4.2.

   -Dllvm={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with support for LLVM based JIT compilation (see
          Chapter 30). This requires the LLVM library to be installed. The
          minimum required version of LLVM is currently 14. Disabled by
          default.

          llvm-config will be used to find the required compilation
          options. llvm-config, and then llvm-config-$version for all
          supported versions, will be searched for in your PATH. If that
          would not yield the desired program, use LLVM_CONFIG to specify
          a path to the correct llvm-config.

   -Dlz4={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with LZ4 compression support. Defaults to auto.

   -Dzstd={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with Zstandard compression support. Defaults to auto.

   -Dssl={ auto | LIBRARY } #
          Build with support for SSL (encrypted) connections. The only
          LIBRARY supported is openssl. This requires the OpenSSL package
          to be installed. Building with this will check for the required
          header files and libraries to make sure that your OpenSSL
          installation is sufficient before proceeding. The default for
          this option is auto.

   -Dgssapi={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with support for GSSAPI authentication. MIT Kerberos is
          required to be installed for GSSAPI. On many systems, the GSSAPI
          system (a part of the MIT Kerberos installation) is not
          installed in a location that is searched by default (e.g.,
          /usr/include, /usr/lib). In those cases, PostgreSQL will query
          pkg-config to detect the required compiler and linker options.
          Defaults to auto. meson configure will check for the required
          header files and libraries to make sure that your GSSAPI
          installation is sufficient before proceeding.

   -Dldap={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with LDAP support for authentication and connection
          parameter lookup (see Section 32.18 and Section 20.10 for more
          information). On Unix, this requires the OpenLDAP package to be
          installed. On Windows, the default WinLDAP library is used.
          Defaults to auto. meson configure will check for the required
          header files and libraries to make sure that your OpenLDAP
          installation is sufficient before proceeding.

   -Dpam={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) support.
          Defaults to auto.

   -Dbsd_auth={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with BSD Authentication support. (The BSD Authentication
          framework is currently only available on OpenBSD.) Defaults to
          auto.

   -Dsystemd={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with support for systemd service notifications. This
          improves integration if the server is started under systemd but
          has no impact otherwise; see Section 18.3 for more information.
          Defaults to auto. libsystemd and the associated header files
          need to be installed to use this option.

   -Dbonjour={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with support for Bonjour automatic service discovery.
          Defaults to auto and requires Bonjour support in your operating
          system. Recommended on macOS.

   -Duuid=LIBRARY #
          Build the uuid-ossp module (which provides functions to generate
          UUIDs), using the specified UUID library. LIBRARY must be one
          of:

          + none to not build the uuid module. This is the default.
          + bsd to use the UUID functions found in FreeBSD, and some other
            BSD-derived systems
          + e2fs to use the UUID library created by the e2fsprogs project;
            this library is present in most Linux systems and in macOS,
            and can be obtained for other platforms as well
          + ossp to use the OSSP UUID library

   -Dlibcurl={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with libcurl support for OAuth 2.0 client flows. Libcurl
          version 7.61.0 or later is required for this feature. Building
          with this will check for the required header files and libraries
          to make sure that your Curl installation is sufficient before
          proceeding. The default for this option is auto.

   -Dliburing={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with liburing, enabling io_uring support for asynchronous
          I/O. Defaults to auto.

          To use a liburing installation that is in an unusual location,
          you can set pkg-config-related environment variables (see its
          documentation).

   -Dlibnuma={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with libnuma support for basic NUMA support. Only
          supported on platforms for which the libnuma library is
          implemented. The default for this option is auto.

   -Dlibxml={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with libxml2, enabling SQL/XML support. Defaults to auto.
          Libxml2 version 2.6.23 or later is required for this feature.

          To use a libxml2 installation that is in an unusual location,
          you can set pkg-config-related environment variables (see its
          documentation).

   -Dlibxslt={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with libxslt, enabling the xml2 module to perform XSL
          transformations of XML. -Dlibxml must be specified as well.
          Defaults to auto.

   -Dselinux={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Build with SElinux support, enabling the sepgsql extension.
          Defaults to auto.

17.4.3.3. Anti-Features #

   -Dreadline={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Allows use of the Readline library (and libedit as well). This
          option defaults to auto and enables command-line editing and
          history in psql and is strongly recommended.

   -Dlibedit_preferred={ true | false } #
          Setting this to true favors the use of the BSD-licensed libedit
          library rather than GPL-licensed Readline. This option is
          significant only if you have both libraries installed; the
          default is false, that is to use Readline.

   -Dzlib={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enables use of the Zlib library. It defaults to auto and enables
          support for compressed archives in pg_dump, pg_restore and
          pg_basebackup and is recommended.

17.4.3.4. Build Process Details #

   --auto-features={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Setting this option allows you to override the value of all
          “auto” features (features that are enabled automatically if the
          required software is found). This can be useful when you want to
          disable or enable all the “optional” features at once without
          having to set each of them manually. The default value for this
          parameter is auto.

   --backend=BACKEND #
          The default backend Meson uses is ninja and that should suffice
          for most use cases. However, if you'd like to fully integrate
          with Visual Studio, you can set the BACKEND to vs.

   -Dc_args=OPTIONS #
          This option can be used to pass extra options to the C compiler.

   -Dc_link_args=OPTIONS #
          This option can be used to pass extra options to the C linker.

   -Dextra_include_dirs=DIRECTORIES #
          DIRECTORIES is a comma-separated list of directories that will
          be added to the list the compiler searches for header files. If
          you have optional packages (such as GNU Readline) installed in a
          non-standard location, you have to use this option and probably
          also the corresponding -Dextra_lib_dirs option.

          Example: -Dextra_include_dirs=/opt/gnu/include,/usr/sup/include.

   -Dextra_lib_dirs=DIRECTORIES #
          DIRECTORIES is a comma-separated list of directories to search
          for libraries. You will probably have to use this option (and
          the corresponding -Dextra_include_dirs option) if you have
          packages installed in non-standard locations.

          Example: -Dextra_lib_dirs=/opt/gnu/lib,/usr/sup/lib.

   -Dsystem_tzdata=DIRECTORY #
          PostgreSQL includes its own time zone database, which it
          requires for date and time operations. This time zone database
          is in fact compatible with the IANA time zone database provided
          by many operating systems such as FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris,
          so it would be redundant to install it again. When this option
          is used, the system-supplied time zone database in DIRECTORY is
          used instead of the one included in the PostgreSQL source
          distribution. DIRECTORY must be specified as an absolute path.
          /usr/share/zoneinfo is a likely directory on some operating
          systems. Note that the installation routine will not detect
          mismatching or erroneous time zone data. If you use this option,
          you are advised to run the regression tests to verify that the
          time zone data you have pointed to works correctly with
          PostgreSQL.

          This option is mainly aimed at binary package distributors who
          know their target operating system well. The main advantage of
          using this option is that the PostgreSQL package won't need to
          be upgraded whenever any of the many local daylight-saving time
          rules change. Another advantage is that PostgreSQL can be
          cross-compiled more straightforwardly if the time zone database
          files do not need to be built during the installation.

   -Dextra_version=STRING #
          Append STRING to the PostgreSQL version number. You can use
          this, for example, to mark binaries built from unreleased Git
          snapshots or containing custom patches with an extra version
          string, such as a git describe identifier or a distribution
          package release number.

   -Drpath={ true | false } #
          This option is set to true by default. If set to false, do not
          mark PostgreSQL's executables to indicate that they should
          search for shared libraries in the installation's library
          directory (see --libdir). On most platforms, this marking uses
          an absolute path to the library directory, so that it will be
          unhelpful if you relocate the installation later. However, you
          will then need to provide some other way for the executables to
          find the shared libraries. Typically this requires configuring
          the operating system's dynamic linker to search the library
          directory; see Section 17.5.1 for more detail.

   -DBINARY_NAME=PATH #
          If a program required to build PostgreSQL (with or without
          optional flags) is stored at a non-standard path, you can
          specify it manually to meson configure. The complete list of
          programs for which this is supported can be found by running
          meson configure. Example:

meson configure -DBISON=PATH_TO_BISON

17.4.3.5. Documentation #

   See Section J.2 for the tools needed for building the documentation.

   -Ddocs={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enables building the documentation in HTML and man format. It
          defaults to auto.

   -Ddocs_pdf={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enables building the documentation in PDF format. It defaults to
          auto.

   -Ddocs_html_style={ simple | website } #
          Controls which CSS stylesheet is used. The default is simple. If
          set to website, the HTML documentation will reference the
          stylesheet for postgresql.org.

17.4.3.6. Miscellaneous #

   -Dpgport=NUMBER #
          Set NUMBER as the default port number for server and clients.
          The default is 5432. The port can always be changed later on,
          but if you specify it here then both server and clients will
          have the same default compiled in, which can be very convenient.
          Usually the only good reason to select a non-default value is if
          you intend to run multiple PostgreSQL servers on the same
          machine.

   -Dkrb_srvnam=NAME #
          The default name of the Kerberos service principal used by
          GSSAPI. postgres is the default. There's usually no reason to
          change this unless you are building for a Windows environment,
          in which case it must be set to upper case POSTGRES.

   -Dsegsize=SEGSIZE #
          Set the segment size, in gigabytes. Large tables are divided
          into multiple operating-system files, each of size equal to the
          segment size. This avoids problems with file size limits that
          exist on many platforms. The default segment size, 1 gigabyte,
          is safe on all supported platforms. If your operating system has
          “largefile” support (which most do, nowadays), you can use a
          larger segment size. This can be helpful to reduce the number of
          file descriptors consumed when working with very large tables.
          But be careful not to select a value larger than is supported by
          your platform and the file systems you intend to use. Other
          tools you might wish to use, such as tar, could also set limits
          on the usable file size. It is recommended, though not
          absolutely required, that this value be a power of 2.

   -Dblocksize=BLOCKSIZE #
          Set the block size, in kilobytes. This is the unit of storage
          and I/O within tables. The default, 8 kilobytes, is suitable for
          most situations; but other values may be useful in special
          cases. The value must be a power of 2 between 1 and 32
          (kilobytes).

   -Dwal_blocksize=BLOCKSIZE #
          Set the WAL block size, in kilobytes. This is the unit of
          storage and I/O within the WAL log. The default, 8 kilobytes, is
          suitable for most situations; but other values may be useful in
          special cases. The value must be a power of 2 between 1 and 64
          (kilobytes).

17.4.3.7. Developer Options #

   Most of the options in this section are only of interest for developing
   or debugging PostgreSQL. They are not recommended for production
   builds, except for --debug, which can be useful to enable detailed bug
   reports in the unlucky event that you encounter a bug. On platforms
   supporting DTrace, -Ddtrace may also be reasonable to use in
   production.

   When building an installation that will be used to develop code inside
   the server, it is recommended to use at least the --buildtype=debug and
   -Dcassert options.

   --buildtype=BUILDTYPE #
          This option can be used to specify the buildtype to use;
          defaults to debugoptimized. If you'd like finer control on the
          debug symbols and optimization levels than what this option
          provides, you can refer to the --debug and --optimization flags.

          The following build types are generally used: plain, debug,
          debugoptimized and release. More information about them can be
          found in the Meson documentation.

   --debug #
          Compiles all programs and libraries with debugging symbols. This
          means that you can run the programs in a debugger to analyze
          problems. This enlarges the size of the installed executables
          considerably, and on non-GCC compilers it usually also disables
          compiler optimization, causing slowdowns. However, having the
          symbols available is extremely helpful for dealing with any
          problems that might arise. Currently, this option is recommended
          for production installations only if you use GCC. But you should
          always have it on if you are doing development work or running a
          beta version.

   --optimization=LEVEL #
          Specify the optimization level. LEVEL can be set to any of
          {0,g,1,2,3,s}.

   --werror #
          Setting this option asks the compiler to treat warnings as
          errors. This can be useful for code development.

   -Dcassert={ true | false } #
          Enables assertion checks in the server, which test for many
          “cannot happen” conditions. This is invaluable for code
          development purposes, but the tests slow down the server
          significantly. Also, having the tests turned on won't
          necessarily enhance the stability of your server! The assertion
          checks are not categorized for severity, and so what might be a
          relatively harmless bug will still lead to server restarts if it
          triggers an assertion failure. This option is not recommended
          for production use, but you should have it on for development
          work or when running a beta version.

   -Dtap_tests={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enable tests using the Perl TAP tools. Defaults to auto and
          requires a Perl installation and the Perl module IPC::Run. See
          Section 31.4 for more information.

   -DPG_TEST_EXTRA=TEST_SUITES #
          Enable additional test suites, which are not run by default
          because they are not secure to run on a multiuser system,
          require special software to run, or are resource intensive. The
          argument is a whitespace-separated list of tests to enable. See
          Section 31.1.3 for details. If the PG_TEST_EXTRA environment
          variable is set when the tests are run, it overrides this
          setup-time option.

   -Db_coverage={ true | false } #
          If using GCC, all programs and libraries are compiled with code
          coverage testing instrumentation. When run, they generate files
          in the build directory with code coverage metrics. See
          Section 31.5 for more information. This option is for use only
          with GCC and when doing development work.

   -Ddtrace={ auto | enabled | disabled } #
          Enabling this compiles PostgreSQL with support for the dynamic
          tracing tool DTrace. See Section 27.5 for more information.

          To point to the dtrace program, the DTRACE option can be set.
          This will often be necessary because dtrace is typically
          installed under /usr/sbin, which might not be in your PATH.

   -Dinjection_points={ true | false } #
          Compiles PostgreSQL with support for injection points in the
          server. Injection points allow to run user-defined code from
          within the server in pre-defined code paths. This helps in
          testing and in the investigation of concurrency scenarios in a
          controlled fashion. This option is disabled by default. See
          Section 36.10.14 for more details. This option is intended to be
          used only by developers for testing.

   -Dsegsize_blocks=SEGSIZE_BLOCKS #
          Specify the relation segment size in blocks. If both -Dsegsize
          and this option are specified, this option wins. This option is
          only for developers, to test segment related code.

17.4.4. meson Build Targets #

   Individual build targets can be built using ninja target. When no
   target is specified, everything except documentation is built.
   Individual build products can be built using the path/filename as
   target.

17.4.4.1. Code Targets #

   all #
          Build everything other than documentation

   backend #
          Build backend and related modules

   bin #
          Build frontend binaries

   contrib #
          Build contrib modules

   pl #
          Build procedural languages

17.4.4.2. Developer Targets #

   reformat-dat-files #
          Rewrite catalog data files into standard format

   expand-dat-files #
          Expand all data files to include defaults

   update-unicode #
          Update unicode data to new version

17.4.4.3. Documentation Targets #

   html #
          Build documentation in multi-page HTML format

   man #
          Build documentation in man page format

   docs #
          Build documentation in multi-page HTML and man page format

   doc/src/sgml/postgres-A4.pdf #
          Build documentation in PDF format, with A4 pages

   doc/src/sgml/postgres-US.pdf #
          Build documentation in PDF format, with US letter pages

   doc/src/sgml/postgres.html #
          Build documentation in single-page HTML format

   alldocs #
          Build documentation in all supported formats

17.4.4.4. Installation Targets #

   install #
          Install postgres, excluding documentation

   install-docs #
          Install documentation in multi-page HTML and man page formats

   install-html #
          Install documentation in multi-page HTML format

   install-man #
          Install documentation in man page format

   install-quiet #
          Like "install", but installed files are not displayed

   install-world #
          Install postgres, including multi-page HTML and man page
          documentation

   uninstall #
          Remove installed files

17.4.4.5. Other Targets #

   clean #
          Remove all build products

   test #
          Run all enabled tests (including contrib)

   world #
          Build everything, including documentation

   help #
          List important targets