## Before You Begin  

To configure metrics and logs collection for a Postgres server, you need the following.

### Ensure Postgres server is prepared for monitoring

- **Ensure that the Postgres server is running a supported version**  
  Postgres versions 9.6+ are supported.  
  You can use the following SQL statement to determine server version  
  ```SQL
  SELECT version();
  ```

- **If collecting metrics, ensure that there is a Postgres user with required permissions**  
  To create a monitoring user for Postgres versions 10+, run:  
  ```SQL
  create user monitoring with password '<PASSWORD>';
  grant pg_monitor to monitoring;
  grant SELECT ON pg_stat_database to monitoring;
  ```  
  
  To create a monitoring user for Postgres versions >= 9.6 and <10, run:  
  ```SQL
  create user monitoring with password '<PASSWORD>';
  grant SELECT ON pg_stat_database to monitoring;
  ```
    

### Ensure OTEL Collector is running with access to the Postgres server

- **Ensure that an OTEL collector is running in your deployment environment**  
  If needed, please [install an OTEL Collector](https://signoz.io/docs/tutorial/opentelemetry-binary-usage-in-virtual-machine/)  
  If already installed, ensure that the collector version is v0.88.0 or newer.  

  Also ensure that you can provide config files to the collector and that you can set environment variables and command line flags used for running it.  

- **Ensure that the OTEL collector can access the Postgres server**  
  In order to collect metrics, the collector must be able to access the Postgres server as a client using the monitoring user.  

  In order to collect logs, the collector must be able to read the Postgres server log file.