In order to explore all the new interfaces to PostGIS (from QGIS, GDAL, GRASS GIS 7 and others) I decided to install PostGIS 2.1 on my Fedora 20 Linux box. Eventually it is an easy job but I had to visit a series of blogs to refresh my dark memories from past PostGIS installations done some years ago… So, here the few steps:

# become root
su -
# grab the PostgreSQL 9.3 server and PostGIS 2.1
yum install postgresql-server postgresql-contrib postgis

Now the server is installed but yet inactive and not configured. The next step is to initialize, configure and start the PostgreSQL server:

# initialize DB:
postgresql-setup initdb
# start at boot time:
chkconfig postgresql on
# fire up the daemon:
service postgresql start

A test connection will show that we need to configure TCP/IP connections:

# this will fail
psql -l
psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

So we enable TCP/IP connections listening on port 5432:

# edit "postgresql.conf" with editor of choice (nano, vim, ...),
# add line "listen_addresses = '*'":
vim /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf
...
listen_addresses = '*'
#listen_addresses = 'localhost'         # what IP address(es) to listen on;
...

Now restart the PostgreSQL daemon:

# restart to re-read configuration
service postgresql restart

Check if the server is now listening on TCP/IP:

# check network connections:
netstat -l | grep postgres
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:postgres        0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp6       0      0 [::]:postgres           [::]:*                  LISTEN     
unix  2      [ ACC ]     STREAM     LISTENING     2236495  /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.543

So far so nice. Still PostGIS is not yet active, and we need a database user “gisuser” with password:

# switch from root user to postgres user:
su - postgres
# create new DB user with password (will prompt you for it, choose a strong one):
createuser --pwprompt --encrypted gisuser

Finally we create a first database “gis”:

# create new DB
createdb --encoding=UTF8 --owner=gisuser gis

We enable it for PostGIS 2.1:

# insert PostGIS SQL magic (it should finish with a "COMMIT"):
psql -d gis -f /usr/share/pgsql/contrib/postgis-64.sql

That’s it! Now exit from the “postgres” user account a the “root” account:

# exit from PG user account (back to "root" account level):
exit

In case you want to reach the PostgreSQL/PostGIS server from outside your machine (i.e. from the network), you need to enable PostgreSQL for that:

# enable the network in pg_hba.conf (replace host line; perhaps comment IP6 line):
vim /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf

...
host    all             all             all                     md5
...

# save and restart the daemon:
service postgresql restart

Time for another connection test:

# we try our new DB user account on the new database (hostname is the 
# name of the server in the network):
psql --user gisuser -h hostname -l
Password for user gisuser: xxxxxx

Wonderful, we are connected!

# exit from root account:
exit
[neteler@oboe ] $

Now have our PostGIS database ready!

What’s left? Get some spatial data in as a normal user:

# nice tool
shp2pgsql-gui

Using the shp2pgsql-gui

Next pick a SHAPE file and upload it to PostGIS with “Import”.

Now connect to your PostGIS database with QGIS or GRASS GIS and enjoy!

See also: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PostgreSQL