PG_CONTROLDATA(1)

📦
version 18.6 · 20 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

pg_controldata — bestie, this one displays the control information of a PostgreSQL database cluster. it's giving backstage pass energy 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pg_controldata [option] [[-D | --pgdata]datadir]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so pg_controldata prints out all the info that got set up during initdb — like the catalog version, for example. iconic. 💅

it also shows you stuff about write-ahead logging and checkpoint processing. and like, heads up: this info is cluster-wide, not specific to any one database. it's the whole vibe of the cluster, not just one little db 🦋

real talk though — this utility can only be run by the user who initialized the cluster, because it needs read access to the data directory. no sneaking in, bestie, it's literally a permissions thing 😭

you can specify the data directory on the command line, or you can just use the environment variable PGDATA and let it do its thing ✨

it also supports the options -V and --version, which print the pg_controldata version and then exit. and it supports -? and --help, which output the supported arguments. so polite of it 🫶

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • PGDATA — the default data directory location. your lil home base 🏠
  • PG_COLOR — specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. possible values are always, auto and never. yes queen, even the diagnostics can serve looks 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was pulled straight from the PostgreSQL 18.6 Documentation, dated 2026 💜 go check your cluster's control data, it's lowkey fascinating fr fr. mwah 💋✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from