INITDB(1)						  PostgreSQL Server Applications						 INITDB(1)

NAME
       initdb - create a new PostgreSQL database cluster

SYNOPSIS
       initdb [ option... ]   [ --pgdata  ]  [ -D  ] directory

DESCRIPTION
       initdb  creates	a  new	PostgreSQL  database  cluster. A database cluster is a collection of databases that are managed by a single server
       instance.

       Creating a database cluster consists of creating the directories in which the database data will live, generating the shared catalog tables
       (tables	that  belong to the whole cluster rather than to any particular database), and creating the template1 and postgres databases. When
       you later create a new database, everything in the template1 database is copied. (Therefore, anything installed in template1  is  automati-
       cally  copied  into  each database created later.)  The postgres database is a default database meant for use by users, utilities and third
       party applications.

       Although initdb will attempt to create the specified data directory, it might not have permission if the parent directory  of  the  desired
       data  directory is root-owned. To initialize in such a setup, create an empty data directory as root, then use chown to assign ownership of
       that directory to the database user account, then su to become the database user to run initdb.

       initdb must be run as the user that will own the server process, because the server needs to have access to the files and directories  that
       initdb creates.	Since the server cannot be run as root, you must not run initdb as root either. (It will in fact refuse to do so.)

       initdb  initializes  the database cluster's default locale and character set encoding. The character set encoding, collation order (LC_COL-
       LATE) and character set classes (LC_CTYPE, e.g. upper, lower, digit) can be set separately for a database when it is created. initdb deter-
       mines those settings for the template1 database, which will serve as the default for all other databases.

       To  alter the default collation order or character set classes, use the --lc-collate and --lc-ctype options.  Collation orders other than C
       or POSIX also have a performance penalty. For these reasons it is important to choose the right locale when running initdb.

       The remaining locale categories can be changed later when the server is started. You can also use --locale  to  set  the  default  for  all
       locale  categories,  including  collation  order  and character set classes. All server locale values (lc_*) can be displayed via SHOW ALL.
       More details can be found in in the documentation.

       To alter the default encoding, use the --encoding.  More details can be found in in the documentation.

OPTIONS
       -A authmethod

       --auth=authmethod
	      This option specifies the authentication method for local users used in pg_hba.conf. Do not use trust unless  you  trust	all  local
	      users on your system. Trust is the default for ease of installation.

       -D directory

       --pgdata=directory
	      This  option  specifies  the directory where the database cluster should be stored. This is the only information required by initdb,
	      but you can avoid writing it by setting the PGDATA environment variable, which can be convenient since the  database  server  (post-
	      gres) can find the database directory later by the same variable.

       -E encoding

       --encoding=encoding
	      Selects  the  encoding of the template database. This will also be the default encoding of any database you create later, unless you
	      override it there. The default is derived from the locale, or SQL_ASCII if that does not work. The character sets supported  by  the
	      PostgreSQL server are described in in the documentation.

       --locale=locale
	      Sets the default locale for the database cluster. If this option is not specified, the locale is inherited from the environment that
	      initdb runs in. Locale support is described in in the documentation.

       --lc-collate=locale

       --lc-ctype=locale

       --lc-messages=locale

       --lc-monetary=locale

       --lc-numeric=locale

       --lc-time=locale
	      Like --locale, but only sets the locale in the specified category.

       -X directory

       --xlogdir=directory
	      This option specifies the directory where the transaction log should be stored.

       -U username

       --username=username
	      Selects the user name of the database superuser. This defaults to the name of the effective user running initdb. It  is  really  not
	      important  what  the  superuser's  name  is,  but one might choose to keep the customary name postgres, even if the operating system
	      user's name is different.

       -W

       --pwprompt
	      Makes initdb prompt for a password to give the database superuser. If you don't plan on using password authentication, this  is  not
	      important. Otherwise you won't be able to use password authentication until you have a password set up.

       --pwfile=filename
	      Makes initdb read the database superuser's password from a file. The first line of the file is taken as the password.

       Other, less commonly used, parameters are also available:

       -d

       --debug
	      Print debugging output from the bootstrap backend and a few other messages of lesser interest for the general public.  The bootstrap
	      backend is the program initdb uses to create the catalog tables. This option generates a tremendous amount of extremely boring  out-
	      put.

       -L directory
	      Specifies  where	initdb should find its input files to initialize the database cluster. This is normally not necessary. You will be
	      told if you need to specify their location explicitly.

       -n

       --noclean
	      By default, when initdb determines that an error prevented it from completely creating the database cluster, it removes any files it
	      might  have  created before discovering that it cannot finish the job. This option inhibits tidying-up and is thus useful for debug-
	      ging.

ENVIRONMENT
       PGDATA Specifies the directory where the database cluster is to be stored; can be overridden using the -D option.

       This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see in the documentation).

SEE ALSO
       postgres(1)

Application							    2010-05-14								 INITDB(1)