Thread: New Installation

New Installation

From
Keith Worthington
Date:
Hello,

I am about to begin my first installation of PostgreSQL. :-)  At the
moment I am installing Red Hat Linux ES v3 on a brand new machine for
use as a database server.    The machine has two RAID arrays.  The first
is an 18GB RAID 0 array that I intend to use as the system drive (/boot,
/, swap space, etc.) while the second is a 140GB RAID 5 array that I
plan to utilize for the database.  I am at the point where I need to
partition the arrays.  What considerations do I need to keep in mind?
Where does the PostgreSQL software get installed?  Where are the log
files kept?  What directory does the database end up in?  Are indexes,
procedures, tables, etc stored in separate locations?  Should they be
for performance reasons?  What can I do now while installing the OS and
eventually PostgreSQL to avoid problems and improve performance in the
future?  TIA for helping out a newbie.

Kind Regards,
Keith

Re: New Installation

From
Keith Worthington
Date:
Keith Worthington wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am about to begin my first installation of PostgreSQL. :-)  At the
> moment I am installing Red Hat Linux ES v3 on a brand new machine for
> use as a database server.    The machine has two RAID arrays.  The
> first is an 18GB RAID 0 array that I intend to use as the system drive
> (/boot, /, swap space, etc.) while the second is a 140GB RAID 5 array
> that I plan to utilize for the database.[snip]

Replying to my own e-mail to correct.

The first is an 18GB RAID 1 array...


Re: New Installation

From
Arthur van Dorp
Date:
> I am about to begin my first installation of PostgreSQL. :-)  At the
> moment I am installing Red Hat Linux ES v3 on a brand new machine for
>  use as a database server.    The machine has two RAID arrays.  The
> first is an 18GB RAID 0 array that I intend to use as the system
> drive (/boot, /, swap space, etc.) while the second is a 140GB RAID 5
> array that I plan to utilize for the database.  I am at the point
> where I need to partition the arrays.  What considerations do I need
> to keep in mind? Where does the PostgreSQL software get installed?

If you install from source you can set it during ./configure with
prefix=/whatever/path. Where RedHat puts it if you use the prebuild
package I don't know, somewhere under /usr I'd surmise.

> Where are the log files kept?

Hm, depends on the start script you use. Lots of distros put it in /var/log.

> What directory does the database end up in?

Whatever directory you tell it to use when using initdb. RedHat probably
runs this when installing.

> Are indexes, procedures, tables, etc stored in separate locations?

No, but I think there's a way to partition your DB somehow.
(Tablespaces? Only in the coming version 8? The gurus and the docs
certainly know).

> Should they be for performance reasons?  What can I do now while
> installing the OS and eventually PostgreSQL to avoid problems and
> improve performance in the future?

I don't really know, being a newbie myself.

If this is an all new machine I'd probably just install things once to
look what steps are needed (keep a log of what steps you perform), play
with it a bit, see whether you get any problems and if you're satisfied:
Start from scratch and replay the "good" steps from your log. Like this
you'll find the answers to most of your questions all by yourself.

Good luck.

Arthur