PostgreSQL comes with a set of additional server extensions, or modules. On Linux, these extensions are provided in the postgrespro-contrib package. On Windows, these extensions are installed together with the server components.

Once you have the binary files installed, you have to enable additional extensions in the database in order to use them. In most cases, you only need to issue the CREATE EXTENSION command. However, some extensions also require shared libraries to be preloaded on server startup. If you want to use such extensions, you need to configure parameter

shared_preload_libraries = 'lib1, lib2, lib3'

in the postgresql.conf file of your PostgreSQL database instance and restart the server before executing the CREATE EXTENSION statement.

For the exact installation and configuration instructions for each particular extension, see the corresponding documentation under Appendix F.

ABI versions may change between minor releases of PostgreSQL. If this is the case, and you see the ABI mismatch error when trying to run your extension, make sure to install a new version of the extension supplied with a new release of PostgreSQL, or recompile your third-party extension to be able to use it with the current version of PostgreSQL.

To get the list of extensions available in your PostgreSQL installation, you can view the pg_available_extensions system catalog.