This Howto explains the upgrade to PostgreSQL 19 on FreeBSD 15.
sudo pkg search --prefix postgresql19-server
postgresql18-server-19.0 Prefix : /usr/local Comment : PostgreSQL is the most advanced open-source database available anywhere
Take a snapshot of the virtual machine or save the entire server.
pkg info | grep sql
postgresql18-client-18.4 PostgreSQL database (client) postgresql18-server-18.4 PostgreSQL is the most advanced open-source database available anywhere
pg_config
BINDIR = /usr/local/bin DOCDIR = /usr/local/share/doc/postgresql HTMLDIR = /usr/local/share/doc/postgresql INCLUDEDIR = /usr/local/include PKGINCLUDEDIR = /usr/local/include/postgresql INCLUDEDIR-SERVER = /usr/local/include/postgresql/server LIBDIR = /usr/local/lib PKGLIBDIR = /usr/local/lib/postgresql LOCALEDIR = /usr/local/share/locale MANDIR = /usr/local/share/man SHAREDIR = /usr/local/share/postgresql SYSCONFDIR = /usr/local/etc/postgresql PGXS = /usr/local/lib/postgresql/pgxs/src/makefiles/pgxs.mk 'LDFLAGS_SL=' CC = cc CFLAGS_SL = -fPIC -DPIC LDFLAGS = -L/usr/local/lib -lpthread -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/lib -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,-R'/usr/local/lib' LDFLAGS_EX = LDFLAGS_SL = LIBS = -lpgcommon -lpgport -lintl -lzstd -lssl -lcrypto -lz -lreadline -lexecinfo -lm VERSION = PostgreSQL 18.4
/usr/local/bin/psql -U postgres -l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding | Locale Provider | Collate | Ctype | Locale | ICU Rules | Access privileges
-----------+----------+----------+-----------------+---------+---------+--------+-----------+-----------------------
db1 | postgres | UTF8 | libc | C | C.UTF-8 | | |
postgres | postgres | UTF8 | libc | C | C.UTF-8 | | |
template0 | postgres | UTF8 | libc | C | C.UTF-8 | | | =c/postgres +
| | | | | | | | postgres=CTc/postgres
(3 rows)
/usr/local/bin/pg_dump --create --encoding=UTF8 --column-inserts --dbname=db1 --format=p --inserts --username=postgres --file=/usr/local/www/db1_20260808.sql
Also check the size of the file!
ls -altr /usr/local/www/*.sql
Postgresql Data Dir: /var/db/postgres/data18/
sudo service postgresql stopsudo pkg delete -fy postgresql18-server-18.4;
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Installed packages to be REMOVED:
postgresql18-server: 18.4
Number of packages to be removed: 1
The operation will free 51 MiB.
[1/1] Deinstalling postgresql18-server-18.4...
[1/1] Deleting files for postgresql18-server-18.4: 100%
==> You should manually remove the "postgres" user
==> You should manually remove the "postgres" group
sudo pkg delete -fy postgresql18-client-18.4
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Installed packages to be REMOVED:
postgresql18-client: 18.4
Number of packages to be removed: 1
The operation will free 15 MiB.
[1/1] Deinstalling postgresql18-client-18.4...
[1/1] Deleting files for postgresql18-client-18.4: 100%
sudo pkg install postgresql19-server
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
New packages to be INSTALLED:
postgresql19-client: 19.0
postgresql19-server: 19.0
Number of packages to be installed: 2
The process will require 69 MiB more space.
20 MiB to be downloaded.
Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y
[1/2] Fetching postgresql19-server-19.0.pkg: 100% 17 MiB 17.4MB/s 00:01
[2/2] Fetching postgresql19-client-19.0.pkg: 100% 4 MiB 3.7MB/s 00:01
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
[1/2] Installing postgresql19-client-19.0...
[1/2] Extracting postgresql19-client-19.0: 100%
[2/2] Installing postgresql19-server-19.0...
===> Creating groups
Using existing group 'postgres'
===> Creating users
Using existing user 'postgres'
===> Creating homedir(s)
= BACKUP YOUR DATA! =
As always, backup your data before
upgrading. If the upgrade leads to a higher
major revision (e.g. 9.6 -> 10), a dump
and restore of all databases is
required. This is *NOT* done by the port!
See https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/upgrading.html
===
[2/2] Extracting postgresql19-server-19.0: 100%
=====
Message from postgresql19-server-19.0:
--
If you have many tables and many clients running, consider raising kern.maxfiles using sysctl(8), or reconfigure your kernel appropriately.
The port is set up to use autovacuum for new databases, but you might also want to vacuum and perhaps backup your database regularly. There is a periodic script, /usr/local/etc/periodic/daily/502.pgsql, that you may find useful. You can use it to backup and perform vacuum on all
databases nightly. Per default, it performs `vacuum analyze'. See the script for instructions. For autovacuum settings, please review
~postgres/data/postgresql.conf.
If you plan to access your PostgreSQL server using ODBC, please consider running the SQL script /usr/local/share/postgresql/odbc.sql
to get the functions required for ODBC compliance.
Please note that if you use the rc script,
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/postgresql, to initialize the database, unicode
(UTF-8) will be used to store character data by default. Set
postgresql_initdb_flags or use login.conf settings described below to
alter this behaviour. See the start rc script for more info.
To set limits, environment stuff like locale and collation and other
things, you can set up a class in /etc/login.conf before initializing
the database. Add something similar to this to /etc/login.conf:
---
postgres:\
:lang=en_US.UTF-8:\
:setenv=LC_COLLATE=C:\
:tc=default:
---
and run `cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf'.
Then add 'postgresql_login_class="postgres"' to /etc/rc.conf, or
set it as the postgres user's login class in /etc/passwd.
========
To use PostgreSQL, enable it in rc.conf using
sysrc postgresql_enable=yes
To initialize the database, run
service postgresql initdb
You can then start PostgreSQL by running:
service postgresql start
For postmaster settings, see ~postgres/data/postgresql.conf
NB. FreeBSD's PostgreSQL port logs to syslog by default
See ~postgres/data/postgresql.conf for more info
NB. If you're not using a checksumming filesystem like ZFS, you might
wish to enable data checksumming. It can be enabled during
the initdb phase, by adding the "--data-checksums" flag to
the postgresql_initdb_flags rcvar. Otherwise you can enable it later by
using pg_checksums. Check the initdb(1) manpage for more info
and make sure you understand the performance implications.
sudo service postgresql initdb
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".
This user must also own the server process.
The database cluster will be initialized with this locale configuration:
locale provider: libc
LC_COLLATE: C
LC_CTYPE: C.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES: C.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY: C.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC: C.UTF-8
LC_TIME: C.UTF-8
The default text search configuration will be set to "english".
Data page checksums are disabled.
creating directory /var/db/postgres/data19 ... ok
creating subdirectories ... ok
selecting dynamic shared memory implementation ... posix
selecting default "max_connections" ... 100
selecting default "shared_buffers" ... 128MB
selecting default time zone ... UTC
creating configuration files ... ok
running bootstrap script ... ok
performing post-bootstrap initialization ... ok
syncing data to disk ... ok
initdb: warning: enabling "trust" authentication for local connections
initdb: hint: You can change this by editing pg_hba.conf or using the option -A, or --auth-local and --auth-host, the next time you run initdb.
Success. You can now start the database server using:
/usr/local/bin/pg_ctl -D /var/db/postgres/data19 -l logfile start
sudo su - postgres/usr/local/bin/pg_ctl -D /var/db/postgres/data19 -l logfile start
waiting for server to start.... done server started
psqlcreate user abc password 'abc';psql -U postgres -f /usr/local/www/db1_20260808.sql > /usr/local/www/dbname_20260808_load.txt
sudo shutdown -r now
Published: Aug. 6, 2026
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