Installation

Installation can be done in various ways, either by proper installation using package managers, or by building it from source and installing.

Using package manager

Using a package manager like dnf can simplify installation.

Adding YUM Repo

View adding YUM repo for pgexporter.

Searching for pgexporter_ext

$ dnf search pgexporter_ext

You should see a similar output to:

Last metadata expiration check: 0:09:38 ago on Sat 07 Oct 2023 01:46:17 AM IST.
===================================== Name Matched: pgexporter_ext =====================================
pgexporter_ext_13.x86_64 : PostgreSQL extension to provide additional Prometheus metrics for pgexporter. // [!code focus]
pgexporter_ext_14.x86_64 : PostgreSQL extension to provide additional Prometheus metrics for pgexporter. // [!code focus]
pgexporter_ext_15.x86_64 : PostgreSQL extension to provide additional Prometheus metrics for pgexporter. // [!code focus]
pgexporter_ext_16.x86_64 : PostgreSQL extension to provide additional Prometheus metrics for pgexporter. // [!code focus]
pgexporter_ext_17.x86_64 : PostgreSQL extension to provide additional Prometheus metrics for pgexporter. // [!code focus]

The packages are named like pgexporter_ext_ followed by the major version of PostgreSQL (eg. 17, 16, 15, 14, etc.). Download the one that corresponds to your PostgreSQL database.

Check your PostgreSQL version using:

$ psql -V

For example, if my PostgreSQL is of v16, then my command would look like:

$ sudo dnf install pgexporter_ext_16

Building from source

Dependencies

pgexporter_ext requires:

• gcc 8+ / clang 8+ (C17)
• cmake
• make
• PostgreSQL

They can be installed using:

$ dnf install git gcc cmake make postgresql-devel

NOTE

It may happen that later the build fails due to "postgres.h" not being found. In that case, uninstall the package postgresql-devel and instead install postgresql-server-devel using:

$ dnf remove postgresql-devel
$ dnf install postgresql-server-devel

Building

Building can be done for a RELEASE build if you want to just use pgexporter_ext or a DEBUG build if you want to work on the source code of pgexporter_ext.

Release Build

$ git clone https://github.com/pgexporter/pgexporter_ext.git
$ cd pgexporter_ext
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

Debug Build

$ git clone https://github.com/pgexporter/pgexporter_ext.git
$ cd pgexporter_ext
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
$ make

An additional optional (but recommended) step would be to install it as well using:

$ sudo make install

Extension

Check Installation

Ensure pgexporter_ext is installed correctly:

$ ls `pg_config --pkglibdir`/pgexporter_ext*

This should give an output like:

/usr/lib64/pgsql/pgexporter_ext.so  /usr/lib64/pgsql/pgexporter_ext.so.0  /usr/lib64/pgsql/pgexporter_ext.so.0.3.0

Find location of postgresql.conf

The following command should get you the postgresql.conf file's location:

$ psql -U postgres -d postgres -c 'SHOW config_file'

PostgreSQL Configuration

Open up this postgresql.conf file in your editor and edit the line to this:

shared_preload_libraries = 'pgexporter_ext'  # (change requires restart)

NOTE

This line may be commented out at first. Uncomment it.

NOTE

If this line is already uncommented out, and contains values inside the '', for eg. abc_ext, then add it as comma separated value as shown:

shared_preload_libraries = 'abc_ext,pgexporter_ext'

Load extension

$ psql -U postgres -d postgres -c 'CREATE EXTENSION pgexporter_ext'

Verify it has been added to the list of loaded etensions by checking in this list:

$ psql -U postgres -d postgres -c '\dx'

Test it out:

$ psql -U postgres -d postgres -c 'SELECT * FROM pgexporter_information_ext()'