Book Image

PostgreSQL Administration Cookbook, 9.5/9.6 Edition - Third Edition

Book Image

PostgreSQL Administration Cookbook, 9.5/9.6 Edition - Third Edition

Overview of this book

PostgreSQL is a powerful opensource database management system; now recognized as the expert's choice for a wide range of applications, it has an enviable reputation for performance and stability. PostgreSQL provides an integrated feature set comprising relational database features, object-relational, text search, Geographical Info Systems, analytical tools for big data and JSON/XML document management. Starting with short and simple recipes, you will soon dive into core features, such as configuration, server control, tables, and data. You will tackle a variety of problems a database administrator usually encounters, from creating tables to managing views, from improving performance to securing your database, and from using monitoring tools to using storage engines. Recipes based on important topics such as high availability, concurrency, replication, backup and recovery, as well as diagnostics and troubleshooting are also given special importance. By the end of this book, you will have all the knowledge you need to run, manage, and maintain PostgreSQL efficiently.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Adding an external module to PostgreSQL

Another strength of PostgreSQL is its extensibility. Extensibility was one of the original design goals, going back to the late 1980s. Now, in PostgreSQL 9.6, there are many additional modules that plug into the core PostgreSQL server.

There are many kinds of additional module offerings, such as the following:

  • Additional functions
  • Additional data types
  • Additional operators
  • Additional indexes
Note that many tools and client interfaces work with PostgreSQL without any special installation. Here, we are discussing modules that extend and alter the behavior of the server beyond its normal range of SQL standard syntax, functions, and behavior.
The procedure that makes a module usable is actually a two-step process. First, you install the module's files on your system so that they become available to the database server. Next, you connect...