How to Install Postgres on Ubuntu 20.04 in WSL

This is a post on how to install Postgres on Ubuntu 20.04, on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). This should hopefully be a straightforward installation for you, which is done by following these 3 steps:

# Update Local Packages on Ubuntu in WSL
# Install Postgres on Ubuntu
# Restart Postgres Service on Ubuntu

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Update Local Packages on Ubuntu in WSL

First, we need to update our local packages, by running the following apt command:

# update local packages
sudo apt update

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Install Postgres on Ubuntu

The next command will install Postgres. We’re including the ‘-contrib‘ package which will give us extra functionalities.

# install postgres on ubuntu
sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib

Once the installation completes, we can enter psql using the ‘postgres’ user that was automatically created during the installation.

# login to psql with the out of box postgres user
sudo -u postgres psql
\q (to quit back to terminal)

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Restart Postgres Service on Ubuntu

You may need to restart the Postgres services after the installation to overcome an error. You can do this by running the following:

# restart postgres service ubuntu
sudo service postgresql restart