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John Lawrence Aspden
Asked: 2011-02-10 11:57:27 +0800 CST

Where is initdb in Ubuntu

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I want to reset my postgresql database back to its initial condition after install. Apparently initdb is the way to do this, but although the command has a man page, it doesn't seem to be anywhere on my Ubuntu 10.10 system.

Does anyone know how this is supposed to be done on Ubuntu?

ubuntu postgresql

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Personally I think you would be better off sticking with the Ubuntu specific commands, pg_lsclusters, pg_dropcluster, and pg_createcluster. These wrapper functions handle all of the filesystem layout pieces, and call initdb where necessary. It's not that you can't use the direct commands, but I've seen a lot of people get in to problems where they bypassed pieces of the regular ubuntu/debian config and then ran into problems when certain assumptions weren't met. You have a packaging solution, take advantage of it.

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  2. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=694887 suggests you want to be looking in /usr/lib/postgresql/$postgres_version/bin where you should also find createdb, createuser and similar, if you need them.

    Substitute your postgres version as appropriate, obviously!

    (As a more general tip: locate initdb would probably have furnished you with the answer. I don't have an Ubuntu machine with PG installed to check either the answer or this fact, though!)

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