Postgresql: password authentication failed for use

Question

I have installed PostgreSQL 8.4, Postgres client and Pgadmin 3. Authentication failed for user "postgres" for both console client and Pgadmin. I have typed user as "postgres" and password "postgres", because it worked before. But now authentication is failed. I did it before a couple of times without this problem. What should I do? And what happens?

psql -U postgres -h localhost -W
Password for user postgres: 
psql: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "postgres"
FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "postgres"

Answer 1

For those who are using it first time and have no information regarding what the password is they can follow the below steps(assuming you are on ubuntu):

1. Open the file pg_hba.conf in /etc/postgresql/9.x/main

    sudo vi pg_hba.conf 
   

   2.edit the below line

    local   all             postgres                                peer
   

   to

    local   all             postgres                                trust
   

2. Restart the server

     sudo service postgresql restart
   

3. Finally you can login without need of a password as shown in the figure

Ref here for more info

Answer 2

The response of staff is correct, but if you want to further automate can do:

$ sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'postgres';"

Done! You saved User = postgres and password = postgres.

If you do not have a password for the User postgres ubuntu do:

$ sudo passwd postgres

Answer 3

I hope this will help you short of time. You can change the password of postgres sql by using bellow command.

Command

sudo -u postgres psql

And next you can update the password

Command

Alter user postgres password 'YOUR_NEW_PASSWORD';

Answer 4

As a rule of thumb: YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER SET A PASSWORD FOR THE POSTGRES USER.

If you need a superuser access from pgAdmin, make another superuser. That way, if the credentials for that superuser is compromised, you can always ssh into the actual database host and manually delete the superuser using

sudo -u postgres -c "DROP ROLE superuser;"

Answer 5

i had a similar problem. Ubuntu was left me log in in console with any password for superuser. Except when i connected with -h localhost in psql line command.

I Observed too that "localhost:8080/MyJSPSiteLogIn" - showed: Fatal: autentication error with user "user".

pg_hba.conf was ok.

I noted had two versions of postgres running in the same service.

Solved - uninstalling inutil version.

Answer 6

I just wanted to add that you should also check if your password is expired.

See Postgres password authentication fails for details.