Making Postgres SQL minimal size. How?

Question

I want to cut Postgres to its minimal size for purpose of including just database function with my application. I'm using Portable Postgres found on internet. Any suggestions what I can delete from Postgres installation which is not needed for normal database use?

Answer 1

You can delete all the standalone tools in /bin - it can all be done with psql. Keep anything that starts wth pg_, postgres and initdb.

You can probably delete a bunch of conversions in lib/ (the some_and_some.so) files, but probably not until after you've initdb'ed. And be careful not to delete one you'll be using at some point - they are dynamically loaded so you won't notice until a client connects with a different encoding for example.

But note that this probably won't get you much - on my system with debug enabled etc, the binaries take 17Mb. The clean data directory with no data at all in it takes 33Mb, about twice as much. Which you will need if you're going to be able to use your database..