Set up PostgreSQL¶

For a production server, use PostgreSQL as the database. This guide covers installing PostgreSQL, creating the SimDB database, applying migrations, and pointing the server at it. It is not an exhaustive PostgreSQL guide; see the PostgreSQL documentation for more.

If PostgreSQL is already running, skip to Create the database.

Install PostgreSQL¶

Install from your system package manager. On RHEL/CentOS:

sudo yum -y install postgresql-server postgresql-contrib

Initialise the database cluster (this creates the default data directory, for example /var/lib/pgsql/data):

sudo postgresql-setup initdb

Start the service and enable it at boot:

sudo systemctl start postgresql
sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Create the database¶

Connect as the postgres user:

sudo -u postgres psql

Create the database and a role for the server (this assumes the server runs as user simdb; change the role name to match your server user):

CREATE DATABASE simdb;
CREATE ROLE simdb;
ALTER DATABASE simdb OWNER TO simdb;
ALTER ROLE "simdb" WITH LOGIN;

Test the connection¶

import psycopg2
psycopg2.connect("postgresql://simdb@localhost:5432")

Tip

If a local connection is refused, check pg_hba.conf in the PostgreSQL data directory and ensure the connection method is trust (or another method you can authenticate with) rather than ident.

Apply migrations¶

The schema is managed with Alembic. Point it at the database and upgrade to the latest revision:

export DATABASE_URL="postgresql+psycopg2://simdb@localhost/simdb"
alembic upgrade head

See Run database migrations for more.

Point the server at PostgreSQL¶

In app.cfg:

[database]
type = postgres
host = localhost
port = 5432
name = simdb

The server also needs the PostgreSQL driver, installed by the postgres extra (pip install -e ".[postgres]").