pg_config executable not found

[Rex Maughan]

Hi,
I am having trouble installing psycopg2 on my Linux VPS Hosting. I get the following error when I try to pip install psycopg2:

Error: pg_config executable not found.

Can anyone help?

[Clay Page]

Your pg_config is missing; follow this:

Install PostgreSQL development packages:

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev

RHEL/CentOS:

sudo yum install postgresql postgresql-devel

Fedora:

sudo dnf install postgresql postgresql-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S postgresql

Verify pg_config is installed.

After installing, check if pg_config is available by running:

which pg_config

It should return a valid path like /usr/bin/pg_config.

Now, try installing psycopg2 again:

pip install psycopg2

If you still encounter issues, you can install the binary version:

pip install psycopg2-binary

(psycopg2-binary comes with precompiled binaries, so it doesn't require pg_config.)