PostgreSQL databases have specific configuration requirements when you use them with vCloud Director. Before you install vCloud Director, you must install and configure a database instance and create the vCloud Director database user account.


You must be familiar with PostgreSQL commands, scripting, and operation.


  1. Configure the database server.
    A database server with 16 GB of memory, 100 GB storage, and 4 CPUs is appropriate for typical vCloud Director server groups.
  2. Install a supported distribution of PostgreSQL on the database server.
    • The SERVER_ENCODING value of the database must be UTF-8. This value is established when you install the database and always matches the encoding used by the database server operating system.
    • Use the PostgreSQL initdb command to set the value of LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE to en_US.UTF-8. For example:
      initdb --locale=en_US.UTF-8
  3. Create the database user.
    The following command creates the user vcloud.
    create user vcloud;
  4. Create the database instance and give it an owner.
    Use a command like this one to specify a database user named vcloud as the database owner.
    create database vcloud owner vcloud;
  5. Assign a database password to the database owner account.
    The following command assigns the password vcloudpass to database owner vcloud.
    alter user vcloud password 'vcloudpass';
  6. Enable the database owner to log in to the database.
    The following command assigns the login option to database owner vcloud.
    alter role vcloud with login;

What to do next

After creating your vCloud Director server group, you can configure the PostgreSQL database to require SSL connections from the vCloud Director cells and adjust some database parameters for optimal performance. See Perform Additional Configurations on the PostgreSQL Database.