How to Create PostgreSQL Database for Django On Mac OS X

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install PostGIS on Mac OS X. We will use a popular distribution suitable for newbies found at Postgres.app This distribution includes the latest version of PostgreSQL and PostGIS and its great for development and testing.

There are other installation options beyond the scope of this tutorial and is usually implemented through Homebrew package (“brew install postgresql”) and the EnterpriseDB OSX PostgreSQL distributions.

To install PostgresQL, Download the PostgresApp from https://postgresapp.com/downloads.html PostgresQL version 16 is the latest release used at the time this tutorial was written.

Complete the installation process.

Next, Open a terminal and log in to PostgreSQL with a superuser account (usually "postgres").

To create the PostgreSQL role and database as specified in your Django settings.

Follow these steps:

1. Launch Postgres.app: After downloading the PostgresApp from https://postgresapp.com/downloads.html, open it. You'll see the elephant icon in your Applications folder. Click to open the app. This action will start the PostgreSQL server.

2. Access PostgreSQL through Terminal: Open Terminal on your Mac. You'll need to access PostgreSQL through the command line.

3. Log in as Superuser: Type the following command to log in as the default PostgreSQL superuser "postgres":

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   psql -U postgres

   It prompts you to enter the superuser password if one has been set during installation.

4. Creating PostgreSQL Role and Database: Once you are logged into the PostgreSQL shell, execute these SQL commands to create a role and a database as specified in your Django settings. Replace 'yourusername' and 'yourpassword' with your desired username and password:

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   CREATE USER yourusername WITH PASSWORD 'yourpassword'; ALTER USER yourusername CREATEDB; -- This allows the user to create databases CREATE DATABASE yourdbname WITH OWNER yourusername;

   This sequence of commands creates a new user, assigns them a password, grants them the ability to create databases, and then creates a database with that user as its owner. Make sure to replace 'yourusername', 'yourpassword', and 'yourdbname' with the actual values you want to use.

5. Granting Privileges (Optional): If necessary, grant specific privileges to the user on the created database:

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   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE yourdbname TO yourusername;

6. Exit the PostgreSQL Shell: Type \q and press Enter to exit the PostgreSQL shell.

7. Configuration in Django: Update your Django settings to use the PostgreSQL database by specifying the database engine, name, user, password, host, and port in the settings.py file:

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   DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql', 'NAME': 'yourdbname', 'USER': 'yourusername', 'PASSWORD': 'yourpassword', 'HOST': 'localhost', 'PORT': '', # If using default PostgreSQL port, keep this empty } }

8. Test the Configuration: Run python manage.py migrate to apply any pending database migrations and ensure the connection to your PostgreSQL database works.

By following these steps, you should have successfully set up a PostgreSQL database for your Django project on your Mac OS X system using Postgres.app.

GlenH - Feb 3, 2024gghayoge at gmail.com