Server instrumentation
The server lacks instrumentation functions.
pgAdmin III uses some support functions that are not available by default in all PostgreSQL versions. These enable some tasks that make life easier when dealing with log files and configuration files.
When you install PostgreSQL 8.0 or up using the Windows installer, you just need to select the "admin" or "adminpack" module.c
When compiling from source, the necessary files can be found in the xtra subdirectory of the pgAdmin source tree. For PostgreSQL 8.0, copy the admin directory under the postgresql contrib source directory, make and make install from there. For PostgreSQL 8.1, use the admin81 directory for that.
PostgreSQL 8.2 and above include the instrumentation functions in the "adminpack" contrib module. After the module is installed, you need to create the instrumentation functions in your maintenance database using the admin.sql script (admin81.sql for PostgreSQL 8.1) which are usually located in the pgsql share directory (e.g. /usr/local/pgsql/share)
Extended server instrumentation is not supported for PostgreSQL 7.3 and 7.4.
While this does provide useful informaiton about some sort of adminpack that is necessary, the actually steps necessary are omitted.
What is adminpack?
As it turns out Postgres comes with a number of additional helpful "contrib" sets of functions which you can install on demand .
One of these sets of function is the Admin Pack it, which:
"provides a number of support functions which pgAdmin and other administration and management tools can use to provide additional functionality, such as remote management of server log files."
Read more about it at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/adminpack.html
Installation:
Locate adminpack.sql on your system.
On Gentoo for PostgreSQL 8.4 it is in: /usr/share/postgresql-8.4/contrib/
Installation itself is quite simple:
psql -U postgres --file /usr/share/postgresql-8.4/contrib/adminpack.sql
* Substitute "postgres" for your distor's default PosgreSQL admin user.
Now close down pgadmin, restart PostgreSQL server and run pgadmin again.
If you ever need to uninstall it you can run:
psql -U postgres --file /usr/share/postgresql-8.4/contrib/uninstall_adminpack.sql
Other Utility Functions:
AdminPack is not the only goodie that Postgre comes with. The full list of additional utilities can be found here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/contrib.html
A quick look inside the contrib/ folder reveals:
_int.sql fuzzystrmatch.sql pg_trgm.sql
adminpack.sql hstore.sql pgcrypto.sql
autoinc.sql insert_username.sql pgrowlocks.sql
btree_gin.sql int_aggregate.sql pgstattuple.sql
btree_gist.sql isn.sql pgxml.sql
chkpass.sql lo.sql refint.sql
citext.sql ltree.sql seg.sql
cube.sql moddatetime.sql sslinfo.sql
dblink.sql pageinspect.sql tablefunc.sql
dict_int.sql pg_buffercache.sql test_parser.sql
dict_xsyn.sql pg_freespacemap.sql timetravel.sql
earthdistance.sql pg_stat_statements.sql tsearch2.sql
adminpack.sql hstore.sql pgcrypto.sql
autoinc.sql insert_username.sql pgrowlocks.sql
btree_gin.sql int_aggregate.sql pgstattuple.sql
btree_gist.sql isn.sql pgxml.sql
chkpass.sql lo.sql refint.sql
citext.sql ltree.sql seg.sql
cube.sql moddatetime.sql sslinfo.sql
dblink.sql pageinspect.sql tablefunc.sql
dict_int.sql pg_buffercache.sql test_parser.sql
dict_xsyn.sql pg_freespacemap.sql timetravel.sql
earthdistance.sql pg_stat_statements.sql tsearch2.sql
