This short tutorial will show you how to connect to a PostgreSQL database server from the Linux command line. Instructions are included for Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux.
The PostgreSQL Client – psql Command
To connect to a PostgreSQL database server from the Linux command, you need to install and use the psql program – the PostgreSQL client.
By default, when installing the PostgreSQL server on Linux, the client is also installed – but you may want to install the client without the server if you are only planning on managing a database remotely.
Installing psql on Ubuntu/Debian
To install the PostgreSQL client only on Ubuntu/Debian Linux, run:
sudo apt-get install postgresql-client
Installing psql on Red Hat/Fedora
To install the PostgreSQL client only on Red Hat/Fedora Linux, run:
sudo dnf install postgresql
Installing psql on Arch Linux
To install the PostgreSQL client only on Arch Linux, run:
sudo pacman -S postgresql-libs
Connecting to PostgreSQL from Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and Linux
With the client installed, you can connect to a PostgreSQL server using the psql command and specifying the host (-h), port (-p), and the name of the database (-d) to connect to.
psql -h localhost -p 5432 -d database_name
Above, psql is used to connect to the datbase named database_name hosted on the PostgreSQL server running on port 5432 on the local machine. By default, psql will try and connect to the host localhost and the default PostgreSQL port 5432, so those options could be omitted from the command.
To connect to a remote PostgreSQL server, supply a hostname or IP address:
psql -h my_database_server_hsot -p 5432 -d database_name
or:
psql -h 192.168.1.10 -p 5432 -d database_name
Supplying User Credentials when Connecting to PostgreSQL
Unless you are logged in as the user postgres and connecting to localhost, you will most likely need to specify the username (-U) and ask to be prompted for a password (-W) to connect:
psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U user_name -W -d database_name
