Setting up Postgres via Homebrew

Setting up PostgreSQL using Homebrew is quick easy and painless, Here's a detailed guide to help you through the process:

Install Homebrew if you haven't already installed Homebrew, you can do so by running the following command in your terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Installing PostgreSQL once Homebrew is installed, you can install PostgreSQL by running:

brew install postgresql@version_number

Initializing a Database Directory after installation, you can initialize the directory with this command:

brew services start postgresql@version_number

Check that PostgreSQL Services are running with:

brew services list

Creating a Superuser

To create a Superuser, you can access the PostgreSQL interactive terminal by running the command:

psql postgres

Then, you can create a new superuser ideally you would want to replace username with your desired username:

CREATE ROLE username WITH LOGIN SUPERUSER CREATEDB CREATEROLE PASSWORD 'password';

Make sure you replace 'password' with a your super secret secure password.

To exit the PostgreSQL Interactive Terminal: Type \q and then press Return/Enter to quit the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

But, WAIT.. There's more...

Additionally, If you have multiple versions of PostgreSQL installed, or if you want to use the PostgreSQL@version_number that you installed as your default version, you can link it with:

brew link postgresql@version_number --force

Finally you want to verify the installation, you can verify that PostgreSQL is properly installed and the superuser is created by logging into PostgreSQL with the new user credentials:

psql -U username -d postgres

Again remember to replace username and password with your chosen username and password. Make sure to keep your password secure and avoid using simple or predictable passwords.

I like to use sha256 myself for passwords, but that's an article for another time.

Comments

[Zoe Edwards]

Thanks for posting this Ryan! Tried a couple of guides and this is the one that worked for me. I also found the install had already made me a user with my macOS username.

Quite a lot of guides seem to suggest using sudo, but I found that wasn’t needed as per your guide.

[sammie]

Thanks for sharing.
I prefer using local server environment because it helps me shorten my development time.