Pg_config shows 9.4 instead of 9.3

Question

I use Postgres 9.3, however my pg_config points to 9.4, which bothers me from the internal extensions (pgTap).

$ sudo aptitude search postgresql | grep ^i i postgresql-9.3 - object-relational SQL database, version 9. i postgresql-client-9.3 - front-end programs for PostgreSQL 9.3 i A postgresql-client-common - manager for multiple PostgreSQL client ver i A postgresql-common - PostgreSQL database-cluster manager i postgresql-contrib-9.3 - additional facilities for PostgreSQL 

As you can see above, I installed 9.3

 $ pg_config BINDIR = /usr/lib/postgresql/9.4/bin DOCDIR = /usr/share/doc/postgresql-doc-9.4 HTMLDIR = /usr/share/doc/postgresql-doc-9.4 INCLUDEDIR = /usr/include/postgresql PKGINCLUDEDIR = /usr/include/postgresql INCLUDEDIR-SERVER = /usr/include/postgresql/9.4/server LIBDIR = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu PKGLIBDIR = /usr/lib/postgresql/9.4/lib LOCALEDIR = /usr/share/locale MANDIR = /usr/share/postgresql/9.4/man SHAREDIR = /usr/share/postgresql/9.4 SYSCONFDIR = /etc/postgresql-common PGXS = /usr/lib/postgresql/9.4/lib/pgxs/src/makefiles/pgxs.mk CONFIGURE = '--with-tcl' '--with-perl' '--with-python' '--with-pam' '--with-openssl' '--with-libxml' '--with-libxslt' '--with-tclconfig=/usr/lib/tcl8.5' '--with-includes=/usr/include/tcl8.5' 'PYTHON=/usr/bin/python' '--mandir=/usr/share/postgresql/9.4/man' '--docdir=/usr/share/doc/postgresql-doc-9.4' '--sysconfdir=/etc/postgresql-common' '--datarootdir=/usr/share/' '--datadir=/usr/share/postgresql/9.4' '--bindir=/usr/lib/postgresql/9.4/bin' '--libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib/postgresql/' '--includedir=/usr/include/postgresql/' '--enable-nls' '--enable-integer-datetimes' '--enable-thread-safety' '--enable-debug' '--disable-rpath' '--with-uuid=e2fs' '--with-gnu-ld' '--with-pgport=5432' '--with-system-tzdata=/usr/share/zoneinfo' 'CFLAGS=-g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security -I/usr/include/mit-krb5 -fPIC -pie -DLINUX_OOM_SCORE_ADJ=0 -fno-omit-frame-pointer' 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -Wl,--as-needed -L/usr/lib/mit-krb5 -L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mit-krb5' '--with-krb5' '--with-gssapi' '--with-ldap' 'CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2' CC = gcc CPPFLAGS = -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -I/usr/include/libxml2 -I/usr/include/tcl8.5 CFLAGS = -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wendif-labels -Wmissing-format-attribute -Wformat-security -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -fexcess-precision=standard -g -g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security -I/usr/include/mit-krb5 -fPIC -pie -DLINUX_OOM_SCORE_ADJ=0 -fno-omit-frame-pointer CFLAGS_SL = -fpic LDFLAGS = -L../../../src/common -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -Wl,--as-needed -L/usr/lib/mit-krb5 -L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mit-krb5 -L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu -Wl,--as-needed LDFLAGS_EX = LDFLAGS_SL = LIBS = -lpgcommon -lpgport -lxslt -lxml2 -lpam -lssl -lcrypto -lgssapi_krb5 -lz -ledit -lrt -lcrypt -ldl -lm VERSION = PostgreSQL 9.4.1 

Running ls on any of the /postgresql locations from pg_config (e.g. /usr/lib/postgresql ) returns 9.3.

Running which pg_config results in: /usr/bin/pg_config

Having looked at /usr/bin/pg_config (with vi), the following:

 PGBINROOT="/usr/lib/postgresql/" LATEST_SERVER_DEV=`ls $PGBINROOT*/bin/pg_config 2>/dev/null|tail -n1` if [ -n "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" ]; then exec "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" " $@ " else if [ -x /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev ]; then exec /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev " $@ " ... ... ... 

Now the search /usr/lib/postgresql/9.3/bin does not create the pg_config file.

using apt-get purge postgresql-9.3 followed by apt-get install postgresql-9.3 does NOT fix the problem.

The closest I found the answer:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/postgresql-common/+bug/789622

I took both steps (updating libpq5 and libpq-dev ) with no effect.

Any information on how this could happen and how to fix it (or at least get around it?), I would agree to be able to manually reassign pg_config (although the actual explanation and correction would be better). Is there a way to create the pg_config file in the /usr/lib/postgresql/9.3 directory?

Answer 1

This is fixed for me by running:

 sudo apt-get install postgresql-server-dev-9.3 

I still don’t know how I got into this condition.

Answer 2

Ubuntu is developing Postgres packages, so most commands will accept PGCLUSTER envvar with a value like 9.5/main so that you can control which version / cluster the command should use. Unfortunately, pg_config not! But /usr/bin/pg_config is just a bash shell, so I added a few lines:

 set -e PGBINROOT="/usr/lib/postgresql/" #redhat# PGBINROOT="/usr/pgsql-" # MY CHANGES START HERE if [ -n "$PGCLUSTER" ]; then exec "$PGBINROOT/$PGCLUSTER/bin/pg_config" " $@ " fi # MY CHANGES END HERE LATEST_SERVER_DEV=`ls $PGBINROOT*/bin/pg_config 2>/dev/null|tail -n1` if [ -n "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" ]; then exec "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" " $@ " else if [ -x /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev ]; then exec /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev " $@ " else echo "You need to install postgresql-server-dev-XY for building a server-side extension or libpq-dev for building a client-side application." >&2 exit 1 fi fi 

This does not support the cluster part of the regular PGCLUSTER string, but you can still say PGCLUSTER=9.3 make , for example. This helps me when I create postgres extensions for the version I installed that is not the latest.

I think it would be safer to use a different name for my variable here, but this hasn't caused me problems yet. :-)

Answer 3

I got into the same problem by doing:

apt-get install postgresql-server-dev-all

in the pg9.4 instance that installed the package for versions 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, and 9.5.

It turns out this script:

 /usr/bin/pg_config 

finds the latest version and launches it:

 #!/bin/sh # If postgresql-server-dev-* is installed, call pg_config from the latest # available one. Otherwise fall back to libpq-dev version. # # (C) 2011 Martin Pitt < [e-mail] > # # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or # (at your option) any later version. # # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. set -e PGBINROOT="/usr/lib/postgresql/" LATEST_SERVER_DEV=\`ls $PGBINROOT*/bin/pg_config 2>/dev/null|tail -n1\` if [ -n "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" ]; then exec "$LATEST_SERVER_DEV" " $@ " else if [ -x /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev ]; then exec /usr/bin/pg_config.libpq-dev " $@ " else echo "You need to install postgresql-server-dev-XY for building a server-side extension or libpq-dev for building a client-side application." >&2 exit 1 fi fi 

The solution was to delete the directory: /usr/lib/postgresql/9.5