pg_config executable not found

Question

I am having trouble installing psycopg2. I get the following error when I try to pip install psycopg2:

Error: pg_config executable not found.

Please add the directory containing pg_config to the PATH

or specify the full executable path with the option:



    python setup.py build_ext --pg-config /path/to/pg_config build ...



or with the pg_config option in 'setup.cfg'.

----------------------------------------
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-build/psycopg2

But the problem is pg_config is actually in my PATH; it runs without any problem:

$ which pg_config
/usr/pgsql-9.1/bin/pg_config

I tried adding the pg_config path to the setup.cfg file and building it using the source files I downloaded from their website (http://initd.org/psycopg/) and I get the following error message!

Error: Unable to find 'pg_config' file in '/usr/pgsql-9.1/bin/'

But it is actually THERE!!!

I am baffled by these errors. Can anyone help please?

By the way, I sudo all the commands. Also I am on RHEL 5.5.

Answer 1

Here, for OS X completeness: if you install PostgreSQL from MacPorts, pg_config will be in /opt/local/lib/postgresql94/bin/pg_config.

When you installed MacPorts, it already added /opt/local/bin to your PATH.

So, this will fix the problem: $ sudo ln -s /opt/local/lib/postgresql94/bin/pg_config /opt/local/bin/pg_config

Now pip install psycopg2 will be able to run pg_config without issues.

Answer 2

On Gentoo You have to execute the following

# Install postgresql client libraries
sudo emerge postgresql-base

Answer 3

On alpine, the library containing pg_config is postgresql-dev. To install, run:

apk add postgresql-dev