PostgreSQL in OS X Lion

There's be mention made of the fact that OS X Lion Server ships with PostgreSQL as it's standard database rather than MySQL.

Can anyone confirm:

1. It this specific to server or does OS X Lion "client" ship with it too?

   I can see indications in the file system on my Mac that it might be included but don't know whether they're the result of a previous aborted Postgres install I did on my machine pre-Lion or just some form of standardisation of directory structures that stops short of an actual install.

2. Is this intended for use as an end user database or is it just supporting functionality within the OS?

Solution 1:

On OS X Lion "client", here's what you can find:

martin$ find /usr/ -name postgre*
/usr//include/postgres_ext.h
/usr//include/postgresql
/usr//include/postgresql/internal/postgres_fe.h
/usr//include/postgresql/server/postgres.h
/usr//include/postgresql/server/postgres_ext.h
/usr//include/postgresql/server/postgres_fe.h
/usr//lib/postgresql
/usr//share/devicemgr/backend/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb
/usr//share/devicemgr/backend/vendor/rails/railties/configs/databases/postgresql.yml
/usr//share/devicemgr/webserver/gems/gems/eventmachine-0.12.10/lib/em/protocols/postgres3.rb
/usr//share/man/man1/postgres.1.gz
/usr//share/postgresql
/usr//share/postgresql/postgres.bki
/usr//share/postgresql/postgres.description
/usr//share/postgresql/postgres.shdescription
/usr//share/postgresql/postgresql.conf.sample

So no binary or similar on a default install (yet there are c/c++ headers) and rails stuff. (note I have Xcode 4.1 installed, and this is where all these Header files may have come from).

2) OS X doesn't use a relational database for anything as far as I know. If it's there is to support development or, well, the service itself.

Solution 2:

They seem to have renamed the server to postgres_real on my non-server version of Lion.

 $ /usr/bin/postgres_real --version
 postgres (PostgreSQL) 9.0.5
 $ /usr/bin/psql --version
 psql (PostgreSQL) 9.0.5
 contains support for command-line editing
 $

I haven't found initdb or pg_ctl yet so far it seems using it in practice still requires a separate userland install. I just pray that doesn't introduce conflicts and confusion between the two.