Createuser: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL: role “tom” does not exist

Question

I\'m trying to set up Postgres for the first time, and I need to create a user with permissions to read and create databases. However, when I use:

createuser          


        

Answer 1

You need to first run initdb. It will create the database cluster and the initial setup

See How to configure postgresql for the first time? and http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/app-initdb.html