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Thread: psql -U postgres does not require a password

psql -U postgres does not require a password

From
Silvan Calarco
Date:
I've just upgraded Redhat RPMs from Postgres 6.5.3 to 7.0.2 on two servers
and run into the same problem on both. When I call the client psql:

psql database_name -U postgres

I'm not asked for a password and every user can access the database with
postgres privileges.
The password for postgres user is set (if I do a "select * from pg_shadow" I
can see it). In addition this happens with every user, not just with postgres.

What am I doing wrong ?
Thanks.

Silvan

Re: psql -U postgres does not require a password

From
"Dr. Hans-Christian Waldmann"
Date:
Mon, 6 Nov 2000 12:11:20 +0100, SILVAN wrote:

>
> I've just upgraded Redhat RPMs from Postgres 6.5.3 to 7.0.2 on two servers
> and run into the same problem on both. When I call the client psql:
>
> psql database_name -U postgres
>
> I'm not asked for a password and every user can access the database with
> postgres privileges.
> The password for postgres user is set (if I do a "select * from pg_shadow" I
> can see it). In addition this happens with every user, not just with postgres.
>
> What am I doing wrong ?
> Thanks.
>
> Silvan
>

I'm not really a postgres admin professional so accept my execuses in case
this hint is to dumb. Your password setting might have been kept in your
pg_shadow table while upgrading. It's just a table internal to the database,
after all. As far as I know, _Access_ is controlled by a file "pg_hba.conf"
which is _external_ to the database. I could imagine that your migration
install has simply overwritten the external file while preserving internal
tables. A default pg_hba.conf leads to the behavior described: anyone can
access any database with just a username. So please chekc this file.

HTH

Hans



---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Hans C Waldmann
Methodology & Applied Statistics in Psychology & the Health Sciences

ZFRF / University of Bremen / Grazer Str 6 / 28359 Bremen / Germany
waldmann@samson.fire.uni-bremen.de / http://samson.fire.uni-bremen.de

friend of: AIX PERL ADABAS SAS TEX
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: psql -U postgres does not require a password

From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
Silvan Calarco writes:

> psql database_name -U postgres
>
> I'm not asked for a password and every user can access the database with
> postgres privileges.

psql only asks for a password if the server requires password
authentication.  Look into pg_hba.conf how to set that up.  (Might be in
/var/lib/pgsql/... on your system.)

--
Peter Eisentraut      peter_e@gmx.net       http://yi.org/peter-e/

Re: psql -U postgres does not require a password

From
Lamar Owen
Date:
"Dr. Hans-Christian Waldmann" wrote:
> which is _external_ to the database. I could imagine that your migration
> install has simply overwritten the external file while preserving internal
> tables. A default pg_hba.conf leads to the behavior described: anyone can
> access any database with just a username. So please chekc this file.

The upgrade procedure calls for a dump, then an initdb (done by the
startup script), then a restore.

The passwords, etc, are dumped and restored -- but pg_hba.conf is not
copied in any way.  The initdb would in fact overwrite this file --
which, if the recommendations in the upgrade docs (README.rpm) were
followed, there should be a copy of that file in the backup directory.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
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