NAME

       initdb - create a new Postgres-XC Coordinator or Datanode database cluster

SYNOPSIS

       initdb [option...] [--pgdata | -D | [--nodename nodename]] directory

DESCRIPTION

       initdb creates a new Postgres-XC Coordinator or Datanode 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
       automatically 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_COLLATE) and character set classes (LC_CTYPE, e.g. upper, lower, digit) can
       be set separately for a database when it is created.  initdb determines 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
       Section 21.1, “Locale Support”, in the documentation.

       To alter the default encoding, use the --encoding. More details can be found in Section 21.3, “Character
       Set Support”, in the documentation.

           Note

           The following description applies only to Postgres-XC

       initdb will be performed locally. This has to be performed for each Coordinators and Datanodes manually.

OPTIONS

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

       --auth-host=authmethod
           This option specifies the authentication method for local users via TCP/IP connections used in
           pg_hba.conf (host lines).

       --auth-local=authmethod
           This option specifies the authentication method for local users via Unix-domain socket connections
           used in pg_hba.conf (local lines).

       -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 (postgres) can find the database
           directory later by the same variable.

       --nodename=nodename
           Set the name of Postgres-XC node initialized. This option is mandatory when setting a node. It
           permits one to define the node itself in cluster node catalog pgxc_node. The node name specified is
           also added in postgresql.conf as value of pgxc_node_name.

       -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 Postgrs-XC server are described in Section
           21.3.1, “Supported Character Sets”, 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 Section 21.1,
           “Locale Support”, 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.

       --no-locale
           Equivalent to --locale=C.

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

       -T CFG, --text-search-config=CFG
           Sets the default text search configuration. See default_text_search_config for further information.

       -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.

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

       Other, less commonly used, options 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 output.

       -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 debugging.

       Other options:

       -V, --version
           Print the initdb version and exit.

       -?, --help
           Show help about initdb command line arguments, and exit.

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 Section 32.14, “Environment Variables”, in the documentation).

NOTES

       initdb can also be invoked via pg_ctl initdb.

SEE ALSO

       pg_ctl(1), postgres(1)

Postgres-XC 1.1                                    2014-04-07                                          INITDB(1)