History:Database Installation

This information on installing the MusicBrainzDatabase was provided by DaveEvans in response to DebianVMWareDatabase.

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If you just want the data in a database, and you don't want Apache etc, here's another method.

• It's more flexible (you can choose not to bother creating the foreign key constraints, for example)
• It has fewer prerequisites (you don't need Perl, nor any of the Perl modules, nor postgresql-devel)
• However it is a bit more "hands on" - you have to check each step for errors yourself, and the import is about 10 or so commands instead of just one.

Here's the method:

Install the base system. Install PostgreSQL (you need both the server and the client, if your system provides them separately). Install bzip2 and cvs.

Check mb_server out of CVS, and download mbdump*.tar.bz2, making sure they match. Configure postgresql the way you want it.

(Here mbrainz is the UNIX user I'm running as; musicbrainz_user is the PostgreSQL user I connect as; importtest is the database I'm setting up).

Create the empty database:

mbrainz$ createdb -U postgres --owner=musicbrainz_user 
 

- --encoding=UNICODE importtest 
 

CREATE DATABASE 
 

mbrainz$ 
 

Create the empty tables:

mbrainz$ psql -U musicbrainz_user importtest 
 

Welcome to psql 7.4.8, the ["PostgreSQL"] interactive terminal. 
 

Type:  \copyright for distribution terms 
 

       \h for help with SQL commands 
 

       \? for help on internal slash commands 
 

       \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query 
 

       \q to quit 
 

importtest=> \i admin/sql/CreateTables.sql 
 

BEGIN 
 

psql:admin/sql/CreateTables.sql:31: NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE will create 
 

implicit sequence "album_id_seq" for "serial" column "album.id" 
 

CREATE TABLE 
 

...

COMMIT 
 

importtest=> \q 
 

mbrainz$ 
 

Decompress the mbdump*.tar.bz2 files:

mbrainz$ tar jxf /path/to/mbdump.tar.bz2 
 

(repeat for the other files too)

Import each file into the database:

mbrainz$ cd mbdump/ 
 

mbrainz$ mkdir ../done 
 

mbrainz$ for t in * ; do echo `date` $t ; echo "\\copy $t from ./$t" | 
 

psql -U musicbrainz_user importtest && mv $t ../done/ ; done ; echo `date` Done 
 

Sun Jun 5 19:46:22 BST 2005 album 
 

...

Sun Jun 5 19:51:06 BST 2005 url 
 

Sun Jun 5 19:51:09 BST 2005 Done 
 

mbrainz$ cd .. 
 

Add primary keys and indexes, and optimise the database:

mbrainz$ psql -U musicbrainz_user importtest 
 

Welcome to psql 7.4.8, the ["PostgreSQL"] interactive terminal. 
 

Type:  \copyright for distribution terms 
 

       \h for help with SQL commands 
 

       \? for help on internal slash commands 
 

       \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query 
 

       \q to quit 
 

importtest=> \i admin/sql/CreatePrimaryKeys.sql 
 

NOTICE:  ALTER TABLE / ADD PRIMARY KEY will create implicit index "album_pkey" for table "album" 
 

ALTER TABLE 
 

...

NOTICE:  ALTER TABLE / ADD PRIMARY KEY will create implicit index "wordlist_pkey" for table "wordlist" 
 

ALTER TABLE 
 

importtest=> \i admin/sql/CreateIndexes.sql 
 

CREATE INDEX 
 

CREATE INDEX 
 

...

CREATE INDEX 
 

CREATE INDEX 
 

importtest=> VACUUM ANALYZE; 
 

importtest=> \q 
 

mbrainz$ 
 

That's it! If you want to, you could also choose to add the views (CreateViews.sql). In fact since we're not running CreateFKConstraints.sql, the import is fairly quick too. If you wanted it even quicker, you might want to do without some of the indexes, and just add the ones you think you need.

If you're planning on writing to the database (instead of just querying from it), you might also want to set the correct sequence values (left as an exercise for the reader) and run CreateFKConstraints.sql, CreateFunctions.sql, and CreateTriggers.sql.

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This method has been reported to work on a Macintosh.