I often find myself in the situation where I need to install and configure PostgreSQL on a new VM running Windows. Because repetitive tasks are annoying and error prone, I’ve decided to automate this process as much as I can using PowerShell.

The Install-PostgreSQL PowerShell module does the following:

• creates a local windows user that PostgreSQL will use (called postgres by default)
• the password use for the creation of this account will be the same as the one used for PostgreSQL’s postgres superuser account
• creates postgres user profile
• downloads the PostgreSQL installer provided by EnterpriseDB
• installs PostgreSQL unattended using the supplied parameters
• sets the postgres windows user as the owner of any PostgreSQL files and folders
• sets PostgreSQL windows service to run under the postgres local user
• creates the pgpass.conf file in AppData
• copies configuration files to data directory
• opens the supplied port that PostgreSQL will use in the Windows Firewall

Usage

On the machine you want to install PostgreSQL, download Install-Postgres.zip file and extract it to the PowerShell Modules directory, usually located under Documents\WindowsPowerShell. Open PowerShell as Administrator and run Import-Module Install-Postgres. Before running the unattended install you should customize the PostgreSQL configuration files located in Install-Postgres\Config directory. You can also add a recovery.conf file if you plan to use this PostgreSQL cluster as a standby slave. All conf files located in Install-Postgres\Config will be copied to the PostgreSQL data directory once the server is installed.

Install PostgreSQL with defaults:

Import-Module Install-Postgres
Install-Postgres -User "postgres" -Password "ChangeMe!"

Install PostgreSQL full example:

Install-Postgres  
-User "postgres"  
-Password "ChangeMe!"  
-InstallUrl "http://get.enterprisedb.com/postgresql/postgresql-9.3.5-1-windows-x64.exe"  
-InstallPath "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.3"  
-DataPath "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.3\data"  
-Locale "Romanian, Romania"  
-Port 5432  
-ServiceName "postgresql"