PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a database management system allowing custom types, triggers and table inheritance.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL Services in CSCF

CSCF operates three principal database clusters:

• postgres.odyssey.uwaterloo.ca — For applications which use institutional data.
• postgres.cs.uwaterloo.ca — General region cluster, including personal databases for people with general region accounts.
• postgres.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca — Teaching region cluster, including personal databases for people with teaching region accounts, used for teaching purposes.

Access to CSCF database clusters is restricted to on-campus.

For information on personal database set up, see PostgresPersonalDatabases.

Usage

• PostgresSchemaUpdate— Some hints on performing schema updates.

For Ubuntu one should become the user postgres and then run psql, the command line tool to access PostgreSQL. If one becomes the Unix user postgres, or if one uses sudo

sudo -u postgres psql

which results in the command line prompt:

Welcome to psql 8.2.4, the !PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type:  \copyright for distribution terms
       \h for help with SQL commands
       \? for help with psql commands
       \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
       \q to quit

postgres=# \l
        List of databases
   Name    |  Owner   | Encoding 
-----------+----------+----------
 postgres  | postgres | UTF8
 template0 | postgres | UTF8
 template1 | postgres | UTF8
(3 rows)

postgres=# 

Setup

See PostgreSQLSetup.

Alternatives

Other DBMS's varying in their scope of application, licensing etc. are MySQL, DB2, Oracle, Apache Derby. See comparison of systems on Wikipedia,

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_relational_database_management_systems

References

• PostgreSQL Meeting 2016 05 24
• Linux Journal article in May 2007 titled * Open-Source Database, Part II: PostgreSQL
• Documentation.