[postgresql] PostgreSQL: Which version of PostgreSQL am I running?

I'm in a corporate environment (running Debian Linux) and didn't install it myself. I access the databases using Navicat or phpPgAdmin (if that helps). I also don't have shell access to the server running the database.

in shell psql.exe , execute

\! psql -V

A simple way is to check the version by typing psql --version in terminal

If Select version() returns with Memo try using the command this way:

Select version::char(100) 

or

Select version::varchar(100)

Don’t know how reliable this is, but you can get two tokens of version fully automatically:

psql --version 2>&1 | tail -1 | awk '{print $3}' | sed 's/\./ /g' | awk '{print $1 "." $2}'

So you can build paths to binaries:

/usr/lib/postgresql/9.2/bin/postgres

Just replace 9.2 with this command.

If you're using CLI and you're a postgres user, then you can do this:

psql -c "SELECT version();"

Possible output:

                                                         version                                                         
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 PostgreSQL 11.1 (Debian 11.1-3.pgdg80+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 4.9.2-10+deb8u2) 4.9.2, 64-bit
(1 row)

Using pgadmin4 it can be seen by double clicking Servers > server_name_here > Properties tab > Version:

Version 3.5:

Version 4.1, 4.5:

The accepted answer is great, but if you need to interact programmatically with PostgreSQL version maybe it's better to do:

SELECT current_setting('server_version_num'); -- Returns 90603 (9.6.3)
-- Or using SHOW command:
SHOW server_version_num; -- Returns 90603 too

It will return server version as an integer. This is how server version is tested in PostgreSQL source, e.g.:

/*
 * This is a C code from pg_dump source.
 * It will do something if PostgreSQL remote version (server) is lower than 9.1.0
 */
if (fout->remoteVersion < 90100)
    /*
     * Do something...
     */  

More info here and here.

If you have shell access to the server (the question mentions op does not have, but in case you have,) on a debian/ubuntu system

sudo apt-cache policy postgresql

which will output the installed version,

postgresql:
  Installed: 9.6+184ubuntu1.1
  Candidate: 9.6+184ubuntu1.1
  Version table:
 *** 9.6+184ubuntu1.1 500
        500 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-updates/main i386 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-security/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-security/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     9.6+184ubuntu1 500
        500 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main i386 Packages

where the Installed: <version> is the installed postgres package version.

For the current version of PgAdmin: 4.16 at the time of writing.

1. Select the DB whose version you need.
2. Click on the properties tab in the right pane.

See screenshot below:

Execute command

psql -V

Where

V must be in capital.

I believe this is what you are looking for,

Server version:

pg_config --version

Client version:

psql --version

In my case

$psql
postgres=# \g
postgres=# SELECT version();
                                                       version
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 PostgreSQL 8.4.21 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc-4.6.real (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3, 64-bit
(1 row)

Hope it will help someone

use VERSION special variable

$psql -c "\echo :VERSION"

Using CLI:

Server version:

$ postgres -V  # Or --version.  Use "locate bin/postgres" if not found.
postgres (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1
$ postgres -V | awk '{print $NF}'  # Last column is version.
9.6.1
$ postgres -V | egrep -o '[0-9]{1,}\.[0-9]{1,}'  # Major.Minor version
9.6

If having more than one installation of PostgreSQL, or if getting the "postgres: command not found" error:

$ locate bin/postgres | xargs -i xargs -t '{}' -V  # xargs is intentionally twice.
/usr/pgsql-9.3/bin/postgres -V 
postgres (PostgreSQL) 9.3.5
/usr/pgsql-9.6/bin/postgres -V 
postgres (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1

If locate doesn't help, try find:

$ sudo find / -wholename '*/bin/postgres' 2>&- | xargs -i xargs -t '{}' -V  # xargs is intentionally twice.
/usr/pgsql-9.6/bin/postgres -V 
postgres (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1

Although postmaster can also be used instead of postgres, using postgres is preferable because postmaster is a deprecated alias of postgres.

Client version:

As relevant, login as postgres.

$ psql -V  # Or --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1

If having more than one installation of PostgreSQL:

$ locate bin/psql | xargs -i xargs -t '{}' -V  # xargs is intentionally twice.
/usr/bin/psql -V 
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.3.5
/usr/pgsql-9.2/bin/psql -V 
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.2.9
/usr/pgsql-9.3/bin/psql -V 
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.3.5

Using SQL:

Server version:

=> SELECT version();
                                                   version                                                    
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 PostgreSQL 9.2.9 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (GCC) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-4), 64-bit

=> SHOW server_version;
 server_version 
----------------
 9.2.9

=> SHOW server_version_num;
 server_version_num 
--------------------
 90209

If more curious, try => SHOW all;.

Client version:

For what it's worth, a shell command can be executed within psql to show the client version of the psql executable in the path. Note that the running psql can potentially be different from the one in the path.

=> \! psql -V
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.2.9

The pg_config command will report the directory where the PostgreSQL programs are installed (--bindir), the location of C include files (--includedir) and object code libraries (--libdir), and the version of PostgreSQL (--version):

$ pg_config --version
PostgreSQL 9.3.6