How to Install PostgreSQL 16 on Ubuntu 24.04 and Allow Remote Access

Install PostgreSQL 16 on an Ubuntu 24.04 server, create a user and a database for remote access, and then configure remote access and the firewall so that only your PC can connect.

1. Requirements

• One Ubuntu 24.04 LTS server (1 GB of memory or more recommended)
• SSH access with an account that has sudo privileges
• The public IP address of the PC you will connect from (e.g. 203.0.113.10)

If you don't have a server, create the smallest DigitalOcean Droplet (1 vCPU · 1 GB). This Droplet is enough to install PostgreSQL 16. Every step in this guide was verified on a server created as a Droplet (1 vCPU · 1 GB memory · 25 GB SSD · Ubuntu 24.04 · Singapore).

2. Install PostgreSQL

The default Ubuntu 24.04 repositories include PostgreSQL 16. Update the package list, then install it.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y postgresql postgresql-contrib

When the installation finishes, check the installed version.

psql --version

psql (PostgreSQL) 16.15 (Ubuntu 16.15-0ubuntu0.24.04.1)

3. Check the service status

When the installation finishes, the default cluster 16/main is created automatically and runs on port 5432.

pg_lsclusters

Ver Cluster Port Status Owner    Data directory              Log file
16  main    5432 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/16/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-16-main.log

sudo systemctl status postgresql@16-main --no-pager

● postgresql@16-main.service - PostgreSQL Cluster 16-main
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/postgresql@.service; enabled-runtime; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2026-10-09 10:42:19 UTC; 20s ago

Now check that you can connect to PostgreSQL. Right after installation, you can connect only as the Linux account postgres.

sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT version();"

                                                                 version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 PostgreSQL 16.15 (Ubuntu 16.15-0ubuntu0.24.04.1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1) 13.3.0, 64-bit
(1 row)

4. Create a user and a database

It is safer for applications to connect as a dedicated user instead of the admin account postgres. Create the user appuser and the database appdb owned by this user. Be sure to replace the password with a value of your own.

sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE ROLE appuser WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'change-this-password';"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE appdb OWNER appuser;"

CREATE ROLE
CREATE DATABASE

Check that the user was created.

sudo -u postgres psql -c "\du"

                             List of roles
 Role name |                         Attributes
-----------+------------------------------------------------------------
 appuser   |
 postgres  | Superuser, Create role, Create DB, Replication, Bypass RLS

5. Check the connection on the server

To connect with a password, you must add -h localhost. This connects over TCP and checks the password.

psql -h localhost -U appuser -d appdb -c "\conninfo"

Password for user appuser:
You are connected to database "appdb" as user "appuser" on host "localhost" (address "::1") at port "5432".
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, compression: off)

6. Allow remote connections

The default settings allow only localhost connections. To allow remote connections, you need to edit two files.

First, change listen_addresses in postgresql.conf so that the server also accepts connections on external addresses.

sudo sed -i "s/^#listen_addresses = 'localhost'/listen_addresses = '*'/" /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf
grep -n '^listen_addresses' /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf

60:listen_addresses = '*'		# what IP address(es) to listen on;

Next, add one line to pg_hba.conf with the IP, user and database to allow. Replace 203.0.113.10 with the public IP of the PC you will connect from.

echo 'host    appdb    appuser    203.0.113.10/32    scram-sha-256' | sudo tee -a /etc/postgresql/16/main/pg_hba.conf
sudo systemctl restart postgresql

Check that port 5432 is now open on external addresses as well. If you see 0.0.0.0:5432, it is working.

sudo ss -tlnp | grep 5432

LISTEN 0      200          0.0.0.0:5432      0.0.0.0:*    users:(("postgres",pid=4188,fd=6))
LISTEN 0      200             [::]:5432         [::]:*    users:(("postgres",pid=4188,fd=7))

7. Configure the firewall (ufw)

Separately from the PostgreSQL settings, allow only your PC's IP to reach port 5432 in the firewall as well. Always allow SSH before you enable the firewall. If you enable the firewall without allowing SSH, your connection to the server is cut off.

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow from 203.0.113.10 to any port 5432 proto tcp
sudo ufw --force enable
sudo ufw status

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere
5432/tcp                   ALLOW       203.0.113.10
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

8. Check the connection from your PC

If psql is installed on your PC, connect to the server's public IP. Replace 203.0.113.20 with the server's IP.

psql -h 203.0.113.20 -U appuser -d appdb -c "\conninfo"

You are connected to database "appdb" as user "appuser" on host "203.0.113.20" at port "5432".
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, compression: off)

If psql isn't installed on your PC, you can run the PostgreSQL client with Docker and connect. Because the --rm option is added, the container is deleted automatically when you end the session.

docker run --rm -it postgres:16-alpine psql -h 203.0.113.20 -U appuser -d appdb

SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3 …) in the output means that the connection is encrypted. Ubuntu's PostgreSQL package turns on SSL by default with a self-signed certificate at install time.

9. Troubleshooting

10. Uninstall

To delete PostgreSQL and all of its data, run the commands below. Because the database files are deleted as well, back up any data you need with pg_dump first.

sudo apt purge -y 'postgresql*'
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/postgresql /etc/postgresql
sudo ufw delete allow from 203.0.113.10 to any port 5432 proto tcp