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How to install Postgres 16 with plpython3u: Recipes for macOS, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Docker

PL/Python is a procedural language extension for PostgreSQL that allows you to write stored procedures and triggers in Python, a widely-used, high-level, and versatile programming language.

plpython3u is the "untrusted" version of PL/Python. This variant allows Python functions to perform operations such as file I/O, network communication, and other actions that could potentially affect the server's behavior or security.

We used plpython3u in How to use OpenAI APIs right from Postgres to implement semantic search and GPT chat, let's now discuss how to install it.

And something tells me that we'll be using it more in the future, for various tasks.

This howto is for self-managed Postgres only.

macOS (Homebrew)​

brew tap petere/postgresql
brew install petere/postgresql/postgresql@16

psql postgres \
  -c 'create extension plpython3u'

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or Debian 12​

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" \
  > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list'

curl -fsSL https://postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc \
  | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/postgresql.gpg

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  postgresql-16 \
  postgresql-contrib-16 \
  postgresql-plpython3-16

sudo -u postgres psql \
  -c 'create extension plpython3u'

CentOS Stream 9​

dnf module reset -y postgresql
dnf module enable -y postgresql:16

dnf install -y \
  postgresql-server \
  postgresql \
  postgresql-contrib \
  postgresql-plpython3

postgresql-setup --initdb

systemctl enable --now postgresql

sudo -u postgres psql \
  -c 'create extension plpython3u'

Docker​

echo "FROM postgres:16
RUN apt update
RUN apt install -y postgresql-plpython3-16" \
> postgres_plpython3u.Dockerfile

sudo docker build \
  -t postgres-plpython3u:16 \
  -f postgres_plpython3u.Dockerfile \
  .

sudo docker run \
  --detach \
  --name pg16 \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -v $(echo ~)/pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data \
  postgres-plpython3u:16

sudo docker exec -it pg16 \
  psql -U postgres -c 'create extension plpython3u'