Re: Locallhost Windows installation

> however, now that i have installed not as a service, how do i correct it?

If this is a new installation and you've not loaded any data yet, I'd say the easiest way would be to uninstall and re-install it again (it would also give you chance to double-check where the data directory is for reference, although you don't particularly need to know this (except maybe for file-system-level backups.)

> since i intend to use this with java applications which are going to be distributed, does one need to activate the server in order to access the database too or one can access the database directly.

All SQL transactions go through the PostgreSQL server – on Windows this is using an ODBC / OLE DB driver.  You will never be able to read the data out of the flat files, so yes you need PostgreSQL to be running to access it (hence the best approach is to leave the service to start automatically, so if the server reboots, PostgreSQL will be already running again.)

All connections go through port 5432 (the default) so make sure this is opened up on your firewall (on Windows 2003 R2 or XP SP2 don't forget to check the Windows Firewall.)

If your Java apps accessing PostgreSQL go through TCP/IP (i.e. they sit on client machines on a LAN and talk back to the server), you will need to edit your pg_hba.conf file (access through the Start menu > Programs > PostgreSQL).  And add a line like (under # IPv4…)

host      user      database          192.168.1.0/24   md5

Replace "user" with your Java apps connection user (or you can set it to "all" to allow any user access)

Replace "database" with the database name of your app (or you can set it to "all" to allow any access to any database)

Replace 192.168.1.0/24 with your network's IP range (or if you don't want to restrict to any particular network, use 0.0.0.0/0.)

Md5 is the authentication method – you can set to "trust" instead of md5 to allow any connection without a password being required (this should be restricted to the localhost ( 127.0.0.1/32) only, or at worst, your local network for obvious security reasons).  However md5 states that a valid password must be required to connect.  I believe you can use crypt as well.

Well done on choosing PostgreSQL!  I'm sure when you get up and running to know the system you'll be glad of the choice you made.

Andy

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