PostgreSQL on CentOS

It is not really a possibility to be Windows-only developer these days. Chances are that you will end up connecting to one Linux server or another. And best way to prepare is to have some test environment ready. For cold days there is nothing better than once nice database server.

For this particular installation I (again) opted for minimal install of CentOS 6.3. I will assume that it is installed (just bunch of Nexts) and your network interfaces are already set (e.g. DHCP).

First step after this is actually installing PostgreSQL:

yum install postgresql postgresql-server
 Complete!

Next step is initializing database:

service postgresql initdb
 Initializing database:                                     [  OK  ]

Start service and basic setup is done:

chkconfig postgresql on
service postgresql start
 Starting postgresql service:                               [  OK  ]

Next step is allowing TCP/IP connections to be made. For that we need to edit postgresql.conf:

su - postgres
vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf

There we find listen_addresses and port parameters and un-comment them (along with small change from all to *):

listen_addresses = '*'
port = 5432

While we are at it, we might add all hosts as friends in pg_hba.conf (yes, don’t do this in production):

vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf

Add following line at the bottom:

host    all         all         0.0.0.0/0             trust

Finish up editing and restart service

exit
 logout
/etc/init.d/postgresql restart
 Stopping postgresql service:                               [  OK  ]
 Starting postgresql service:                               [  OK  ]

Quick check with psql is in order (notice that \q is used for exit):

psql -h 192.168.56.101 -U postgres -d postgres
 psql (8.4.13)
 Type "help" for help.
\q

If external connections are needed, we must handle firewall. And easiest way to do this is disabling it. For production environment this is a big no-no. For simple testing of virtual machine it will suffice:

/etc/init.d/iptables stop
chkconfig iptables off

And with this we are ready to accept clients.

In the Year 2012

As year is now over, it is good time to pull out some statistics.

There was total of 117 new posts last year. Programming was biggest category with 35% and program update posts came second with 15%. Everything else was mishmash of various topic.

Traffic-wise I did good since number of visits almost doubled as did number of page views. Readers came mostly from US (24%) and Germany (10%). Since more than 60% of visitors actually don’t disclose location I can only assume that they follow same distribution.

A bit over 50% of visitors came looking for programs I have on site, VHD Attach and MagiWOL being most popular. Windows 8 proved to be quite a popular topic with something like 20% of visits. Unfortunately this is not because of their popularity but mostly because people were looking at troubleshooting posts.

Uptime this year was 99.87% as calculated by PingDom. How close this number is to reality I cannot be bothered to check. It does sound plausible in any case. And who can prove me wrong anyhow?

I just hope that 2013 will be even better.

VHD Attach 3.70

Good new year celebration should start with new version of VHD Attach.

Major change for this version is support for new VHDX virtual disk format. This will work only on Windows 8 so don’t get your hopes up immediately if you are on Windows 7 system. Support for it on Windows 7 depends on Microsoft updating its virtual disk SCSI driver.

As usual you can upgrade from within application or from the website.

Enjoy.

PS: Yes, I know that install experience on fresh Windows 8 system is not really nice because service will not start automatically. You will get opportunity to start it first time you run application. Don’t be bitchy about it.

PPS: If you want to know what is happening behind the curtains you can check source at BitBucket.

The End

World has ended.

Everybody thought that it will be a comet, volcano or something equally noticeable but end came silently with a whiff of decomposing bodies. Yes, zombies are around us.

I hope everybody currently living will manage to survive. Good luck.

Visual Studio Update 1

Service pack is forbidden word these days in Redmond. Therefore we got Visual Studio 2012 Update 1. Initial download is only 1 MB with rest of data collected upon setup. Real fun if you need to update multiple computers.

As far as update goes there just aren’t any major improvements. Mostly it is just bug fixes and stuff that ought to be in initial release.

One thing that I do like is how fast this update came after initial release. If they keep up this speed we might get next service pack update in a few months. With obvious stuff gone that means that some goodies will be there. We can only hope.