1INITDB(1)                PostgreSQL 13.3 Documentation               INITDB(1)
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NAME

6       initdb - create a new PostgreSQL database cluster
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SYNOPSIS

9       initdb [option...] [--pgdata | -D] directory
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DESCRIPTION

12       initdb creates a new PostgreSQL database cluster. A database cluster is
13       a collection of databases that are managed by a single server instance.
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15       Creating a database cluster consists of creating the directories in
16       which the database data will live, generating the shared catalog tables
17       (tables that belong to the whole cluster rather than to any particular
18       database), and creating the template1 and postgres databases. When you
19       later create a new database, everything in the template1 database is
20       copied. (Therefore, anything installed in template1 is automatically
21       copied into each database created later.) The postgres database is a
22       default database meant for use by users, utilities and third party
23       applications.
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25       Although initdb will attempt to create the specified data directory, it
26       might not have permission if the parent directory of the desired data
27       directory is root-owned. To initialize in such a setup, create an empty
28       data directory as root, then use chown to assign ownership of that
29       directory to the database user account, then su to become the database
30       user to run initdb.
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32       initdb must be run as the user that will own the server process,
33       because the server needs to have access to the files and directories
34       that initdb creates. Since the server cannot be run as root, you must
35       not run initdb as root either. (It will in fact refuse to do so.)
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37       For security reasons the new cluster created by initdb will only be
38       accessible by the cluster owner by default. The --allow-group-access
39       option allows any user in the same group as the cluster owner to read
40       files in the cluster. This is useful for performing backups as a
41       non-privileged user.
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43       initdb initializes the database cluster's default locale and character
44       set encoding. The character set encoding, collation order (LC_COLLATE)
45       and character set classes (LC_CTYPE, e.g., upper, lower, digit) can be
46       set separately for a database when it is created.  initdb determines
47       those settings for the template1 database, which will serve as the
48       default for all other databases.
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50       To alter the default collation order or character set classes, use the
51       --lc-collate and --lc-ctype options. Collation orders other than C or
52       POSIX also have a performance penalty. For these reasons it is
53       important to choose the right locale when running initdb.
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55       The remaining locale categories can be changed later when the server is
56       started. You can also use --locale to set the default for all locale
57       categories, including collation order and character set classes. All
58       server locale values (lc_*) can be displayed via SHOW ALL. More details
59       can be found in Section 23.1.
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61       To alter the default encoding, use the --encoding. More details can be
62       found in Section 23.3.
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OPTIONS

65       -A authmethod
66       --auth=authmethod
67           This option specifies the default authentication method for local
68           users used in pg_hba.conf (host and local lines).  initdb will
69           prepopulate pg_hba.conf entries using the specified authentication
70           method for non-replication as well as replication connections.
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72           Do not use trust unless you trust all local users on your system.
73           trust is the default for ease of installation.
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75       --auth-host=authmethod
76           This option specifies the authentication method for local users via
77           TCP/IP connections used in pg_hba.conf (host lines).
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79       --auth-local=authmethod
80           This option specifies the authentication method for local users via
81           Unix-domain socket connections used in pg_hba.conf (local lines).
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83       -D directory
84       --pgdata=directory
85           This option specifies the directory where the database cluster
86           should be stored. This is the only information required by initdb,
87           but you can avoid writing it by setting the PGDATA environment
88           variable, which can be convenient since the database server
89           (postgres) can find the database directory later by the same
90           variable.
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92       -E encoding
93       --encoding=encoding
94           Selects the encoding of the template database. This will also be
95           the default encoding of any database you create later, unless you
96           override it there. The default is derived from the locale, or
97           SQL_ASCII if that does not work. The character sets supported by
98           the PostgreSQL server are described in Section 23.3.1.
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100       -g
101       --allow-group-access
102           Allows users in the same group as the cluster owner to read all
103           cluster files created by initdb. This option is ignored on Windows
104           as it does not support POSIX-style group permissions.
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106       -k
107       --data-checksums
108           Use checksums on data pages to help detect corruption by the I/O
109           system that would otherwise be silent. Enabling checksums may incur
110           a noticeable performance penalty. If set, checksums are calculated
111           for all objects, in all databases. All checksum failures will be
112           reported in the pg_stat_database view.
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114       --locale=locale
115           Sets the default locale for the database cluster. If this option is
116           not specified, the locale is inherited from the environment that
117           initdb runs in. Locale support is described in Section 23.1.
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119       --lc-collate=locale
120       --lc-ctype=locale
121       --lc-messages=locale
122       --lc-monetary=locale
123       --lc-numeric=locale
124       --lc-time=locale
125           Like --locale, but only sets the locale in the specified category.
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127       --no-locale
128           Equivalent to --locale=C.
129
130       -N
131       --no-sync
132           By default, initdb will wait for all files to be written safely to
133           disk. This option causes initdb to return without waiting, which is
134           faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash can
135           leave the data directory corrupt. Generally, this option is useful
136           for testing, but should not be used when creating a production
137           installation.
138
139       --pwfile=filename
140           Makes initdb read the database superuser's password from a file.
141           The first line of the file is taken as the password.
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143       -S
144       --sync-only
145           Safely write all database files to disk and exit. This does not
146           perform any of the normal initdb operations.
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148       -T config
149       --text-search-config=config
150           Sets the default text search configuration. See
151           default_text_search_config for further information.
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153       -U username
154       --username=username
155           Selects the user name of the database superuser. This defaults to
156           the name of the effective user running initdb. It is really not
157           important what the superuser's name is, but one might choose to
158           keep the customary name postgres, even if the operating system
159           user's name is different.
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161       -W
162       --pwprompt
163           Makes initdb prompt for a password to give the database superuser.
164           If you don't plan on using password authentication, this is not
165           important. Otherwise you won't be able to use password
166           authentication until you have a password set up.
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168       -X directory
169       --waldir=directory
170           This option specifies the directory where the write-ahead log
171           should be stored.
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173       --wal-segsize=size
174           Set the WAL segment size, in megabytes. This is the size of each
175           individual file in the WAL log. The default size is 16 megabytes.
176           The value must be a power of 2 between 1 and 1024 (megabytes). This
177           option can only be set during initialization, and cannot be changed
178           later.
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180           It may be useful to adjust this size to control the granularity of
181           WAL log shipping or archiving. Also, in databases with a high
182           volume of WAL, the sheer number of WAL files per directory can
183           become a performance and management problem. Increasing the WAL
184           file size will reduce the number of WAL files.
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186       Other, less commonly used, options are also available:
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188       -d
189       --debug
190           Print debugging output from the bootstrap backend and a few other
191           messages of lesser interest for the general public. The bootstrap
192           backend is the program initdb uses to create the catalog tables.
193           This option generates a tremendous amount of extremely boring
194           output.
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196       -L directory
197           Specifies where initdb should find its input files to initialize
198           the database cluster. This is normally not necessary. You will be
199           told if you need to specify their location explicitly.
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201       -n
202       --no-clean
203           By default, when initdb determines that an error prevented it from
204           completely creating the database cluster, it removes any files it
205           might have created before discovering that it cannot finish the
206           job. This option inhibits tidying-up and is thus useful for
207           debugging.
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209       Other options:
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211       -V
212       --version
213           Print the initdb version and exit.
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215       -?
216       --help
217           Show help about initdb command line arguments, and exit.
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ENVIRONMENT

220       PGDATA
221           Specifies the directory where the database cluster is to be stored;
222           can be overridden using the -D option.
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224       PG_COLOR
225           Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible
226           values are always, auto and never.
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228       TZ
229           Specifies the default time zone of the created database cluster.
230           The value should be a full time zone name (see Section 8.5.3).
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232       This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
233       environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14).
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NOTES

236       initdb can also be invoked via pg_ctl initdb.
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SEE ALSO

239       pg_ctl(1), postgres(1)
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243PostgreSQL 13.3                      2021                            INITDB(1)
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