Feedback-ID: i76984098:Fastmail
Message-ID: <ef85322f-55fd-4540-a476-013b5b8e9662@aklaver.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2024 19:43:27 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Subject: Re: Where is my app installed?
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Arbol One <ArbolOne@hotmail.ca>, pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org
References: <DM8PR02MB79420C68B10478728F2AF6D6BA882@DM8PR02MB7942.namprd02.prod.outlook.com>
 <f708d2f6-31db-4b06-9227-3ad5d7e19731@aklaver.com>
 <2115389.1724379712@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Content-Language: en-US
From: Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com>
In-Reply-To: <2115389.1724379712@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Archived-At: <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/ef85322f-55fd-4540-a476-013b5b8e9662%40aklaver.com>
Precedence: bulk

On 8/22/24 19:21, Tom Lane wrote:
> Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> writes:
>> On 8/22/24 17:36, Arbol One wrote:
>>> After installing PostgreSQL on my Debian-12 machine, I typed 'postgres
>>> --version' and got this msg:
>>> *bash: postgres: command not found*
>>> 'psql --version', however, does work and gives me this message :
>>> *psql (PostgreSQL) 16.3 (Debian 16.3-1.pgdg120+1)*
>>> Obviously postgres is not in the path, but I don't know where the
>>> 'apt-get' installed it or why it did not add it to the path.
> 
>> As to where the  postgres command is:
>> ls -al /usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/
> 
> Theory 1: postgres is packaged in a "postgresql-server" package
> and the OP only installed the base (client-side) package.
> 
> Theory 2: postgres is installed into some directory not in the OP's
> PATH, such as /usr/sbin.  Since it's primarily used as a daemon,
> this'd be a reasonable thing for a packager to do.

Yes in:

ls -al /usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/

> 
> I'd bet a nickel on #1, though, because I've not seen too many
> packagers put postgres somewhere other than where they put psql.
> "Separate server package" is extremely common though.

Correct. The missing part is that in Debian/Ubuntu packaging when you 
use psql you are actually doing:

ls -al /usr/bin/psql
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Aug  8 07:37 /usr/bin/psql -> 
../share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper

The Debian packaging routes most things through 
pg_wrapper/postgresql-common a Perl script that does the magic of 
finding the correct binaries for each Postgres version.

> 
> 			regards, tom lane

-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com