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1.8.2 Cygwin

PostgreSQL can be built using Cygwin, a Linux-like environment for Windows, but that method is inferior to the native Windows build (see section 2 Installation from Source Code on Windows) and is no longer recommended.

When building from source, proceed according to the normal installation procedure (i.e., ./configure; make; etc.), noting the following-Cygwin specific differences:

• Set your path to use the Cygwin bin directory before the Windows utilities. This will help prevent problems with compilation.
• The GNU make command is called make, not gmake.
• The adduser command is not supported; use the appropriate user management application on Windows NT, 2000, or XP. Otherwise, skip this step.
• The su command is not supported; use ssh to simulate su on Windows NT, 2000, or XP. Otherwise, skip this step.
• OpenSSL is not supported.
• Start cygserver for shared memory support. To do this, enter the command /usr/sbin/cygserver &. This program needs to be running anytime you start the PostgreSQL server or initialize a database cluster (initdb). The default cygserver configuration may need to be changed (e.g., increase SEMMNS) to prevent PostgreSQL from failing due to a lack of system resources.
• The parallel regression tests (make check) can generate spurious regression test failures due to overflowing the listen() backlog queue which causes connection refused errors or hangs. You can limit the number of connections using the make variable MAX_CONNECTIONS thus:

  make MAX_CONNECTIONS=5 check
  

  (On some systems you can have up to about 10 simultaneous connections).

It is possible to install cygserver and the PostgreSQL server as Windows NT services. For information on how to do this, please refer to the ‘README’ document included with the PostgreSQL binary package on Cygwin. It is installed in the directory ‘/usr/share/doc/Cygwin’.