How to install PostGIS 2.0 on Debian 7.x (wheezy) from source

Prerequisites

Several components are needed, which can either be built from source or installed from pre-built packages, as shown below. It is assumed you have already installed and configured sudo (not done by default).

Install prerequisite packages using:

sudo apt-get install build-essential postgresql-9.1 postgresql-server-dev-9.1 libxml2-dev libgeos-dev libproj-dev libjson0-dev xsltproc docbook-xsl docbook-mathml

Optional package for raster support (recommended):

sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev

Build PostGIS

wget http://download.osgeo.org/postgis/source/postgis-2.0.3.tar.gz
tar xfvz postgis-2.0.3.tar.gz
cd postgis-2.0.3

PostGIS 2.0 can be configured to disable topology or raster extensions, using the configure flags --without-raster and --without-topology. The default is to build both extensions:

./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo make comments-install

Lastly, enable the command-line tools to work from your shell:

sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/shp2pgsql
sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/pgsql2shp
sudo ln -sf /usr/share/postgresql-common/pg_wrapper /usr/local/bin/raster2pgsql

PostGIS Extension for PostgreSQL

Spatially enabling a database using extensions is a new feature of PostgreSQL 9.1.

Connect to your database using pgAdmin or psql, and run the following commands. To add postgis with raster support:

CREATE EXTENSION postgis;

To add topology support, a second extension can be created on the database:

CREATE EXTENSION postgis_topology;

Enabler Scripts / Template

Enabler scripts can be used to either build a template, or directly spatially enable a database. This method is older than the extension method, but is required if the raster support is not built.

The following example creates a template, which can be re-used for creating multiple spatially-enabled databases. Or if you just want to make one spatially enabled database, you can modify the commands for your needs.

PostGIS:

sudo -u postgres createdb template_postgis
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -c "UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate=true WHERE datname='template_postgis'"
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/spatial_ref_sys.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis_comments.sql

with raster support:

sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/rtpostgis.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/raster_comments.sql

with topology support:

sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/topology.sql
sudo -u postgres psql -d template_postgis -f /usr/share/postgresql/9.1/contrib/postgis-2.0/topology_comments.sql