Here's how I got through the installation and configuration of PostGIS on OS X (10.10 Yosemite).

This post is mainly for my reference. I spent too much time to find a clear reproducible way to achieve the result.

Here's what finally worked for me.

The stack

• Postgresql 9.4.3
• PostGIS 2.1.7
• Python 2.7
• Django 1.7

Install PostGIS

I'm not sure I could have actually accomplished this without Homebrew. It really is a great package management tool for OS X. It handles dependencies with no pain at all.

get package info

brew info postgis

this produce something like (partial):

postgis: stable 2.1.7, HEAD
Adds support for geographic objects to PostgreSQL
http://postgis.net
Not installed

Install PostGIS

If the version you got does not match this post, try with:

brew tap postgis
brew search postgis
brew install homebrew/versions/postgis20

otherwise:

brew install postgis

Homebrew will install both PostGIS and PostgreSQL, check it with

brew info postgres
brew info postgis

the default data dir /usr/local/var/postgres is owned by root and I prefre to run my database as non privileged user, first I need to chown the directory

sudo chown sax /usr/local/var/postgres

Initialize

initdb /usr/local/var/postgres  -E utf8

Launch postgres

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start

To do not receive annoying messages during my daily activities I also create the standard postgres superuser

createuser -s -r postgres

PostGIS Functions and Template

PostGIS essentially is a table a couple of databse views and a many functions. You need to create a "template" database to store all of them.

Create the database that we use as template for any

createdb template_postgis
psql -f /usr/local/share/postgis/postgis.sql template_postgis
psql -f /usr/local/share/postgis/spatial_ref_sys.sql template_postgis

Create Django database

psql -c 'CREATE DATABASE wfp_commonapi_gis;' -U postgres;
psql -d gis_example -c 'CREATE EXTENSION postgis;' -U postgres;

or

createdb -E UTF8 PIPPO -T template_postgis

NOTE: Do not run django test before you create the "real" PostGIS database (at least with pytest) or you get a OperationalError: FATAL: database "DBNAME" does not exist. Seems that Django is not able to create a PostGIS test database if the original one does not exists.

Make PostGIS start automatically

This is done following the hint on bottom of brew info postgres output

ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/postgresql/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents 
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

Put everything togheter

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#!/usr/bin/env bash

PGDATA="/usr/local/var/postgres"
LOG="/usr/local/var/postgres/server.log"

brew install postgis || exit 1
sudo chown sax ${PGDATA}  || exit 1
initdb ${PGDATA} -E utf8  || exit 1

pg_ctl -D ${PGDATA} -l ${LOG} start -w || exit 1

createuser -s -r postgres  || exit 1

createdb template_postgis || exit 1

psql -f /usr/local/share/postgis/postgis.sql template_postgis  || exit 1
psql -f /usr/local/share/postgis/spatial_ref_sys.sql template_postgis  || exit 1

pg_ctl status