PostgreSQL Database Installation

This section entails the installation and configuration of a local PostgreSQL database. If you already have a PostgreSQL database service in place, skip to the next section.

PostgreSQL 14 or later required

NetBox requires PostgreSQL 14 or later. Please note that MySQL and other relational databases are not supported.

Installation

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y postgresql

Before continuing, verify that you have installed PostgreSQL 14 or later:

psql -V

Database Creation

At a minimum, we need to create a database for NetBox and assign it a username and password for authentication. Start by invoking the PostgreSQL shell as the system Postgres user.

sudo -u postgres psql

Within the shell, enter the following commands to create the database and user (role), substituting your own value for the password:

CREATE DATABASE netbox;
CREATE USER netbox WITH PASSWORD 'J5brHrAXFLQSif0K';
ALTER DATABASE netbox OWNER TO netbox;
-- the next two commands are needed on PostgreSQL 15 and later
\connect netbox;
GRANT CREATE ON SCHEMA public TO netbox;

Use a strong password

Do not use the password from the example. Choose a strong, random password to ensure secure database authentication for your NetBox installation.

Use UTF8 encoding

Make sure that your database uses UTF8 encoding (the default for new installations). Especially do not use SQL_ASCII encoding, as it can lead to unpredictable and unrecoverable errors. Enter \l to check your encoding.

Once complete, enter \q to exit the PostgreSQL shell.

:::

Verify Service Status

You can verify that authentication works by executing the psql command and passing the configured username and password. (Replace localhost with your database server if using a remote database.)

$ psql --username netbox --password --host localhost netbox
Password for user netbox: 
psql (12.5 (Ubuntu 12.5-0ubuntu0.20.04.1))
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
Type "help" for help.

netbox=> \conninfo
You are connected to database "netbox" as user "netbox" on host "localhost" (address "127.0.0.1") at port "5432".
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
netbox=> \q

If successful, you will enter a netbox prompt. Type \conninfo to confirm your connection, or type \q to exit.