Install postgresql@14 on M1 Mac with Homebrew

May 11, 2023#TIL387

AI-generated summary

To install PostgreSQL version 14 on a Mac, use the command "brew install postgresql@14" and then restart the service with "brew services restart postgresql@14". If everything is successful, you can close the tab and enjoy. If there are issues, you can check the log file at "/opt/homebrew/var/log/[email protected]" and it may indicate that the database is missing. In that case, you can create it with the command "initdb --locale=C -E UTF-8 /opt/homebrew/var/postgresql@14" and then restart the service again. If you need a database user, you can create one with "/opt/homebrew/bin/createuser -s" and set a password using the command "\password" in the psql shell.

First step#

brew install postgresql@14
brew services restart postgresql@14

psql postgres

If everything works, congratulations! Now close this tab and enjoy your life. If not, please continue reading.

Debugging#

In M1 Mac, brew services log exists in the following path.

cat /opt/homebrew/var/log/[email protected]

Checking the log here, and it says:

postgres: could not access directory "/opt/homebrew/var/postgresql@14": No such file or directory
Run initdb or pg_basebackup to initialize a PostgreSQL data directory.

Okay, seems like our database is missing. Let's create one at the expected directory.

initdb --locale=C -E UTF-8 /opt/homebrew/var/postgresql@14
brew services restart postgresql@14

Now everything should work.

In case you need a database user.

/opt/homebrew/bin/createuser -s <username>

psql -U <username>

## and in the psql shell, run \password to set a password
postgres=# \password