How to configure postgresql for the first time?

Rohit Banga picture Rohit Banga · Sep 24, 2009 · Viewed 251.7k times · Source

I have just installed postgresql and I specified password x during installation. When I try to do createdb and specify any password I get the message:

createdb: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL: password authentication failed for user

Same for createuser.

How should I start? Can I add myself as a user to the database?

Answer

Manur picture Manur · Oct 1, 2012

The other answers were not completely satisfying to me. Here's what worked for postgresql-9.1 on Xubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.

  1. Connect to the default database with user postgres:

    sudo -u postgres psql template1

  2. Set the password for user postgres, then exit psql (Ctrl-D):

    ALTER USER postgres with encrypted password 'xxxxxxx';

  3. Edit the pg_hba.conf file:

    sudo vim /etc/postgresql/9.1/main/pg_hba.conf

    and change "peer" to "md5" on the line concerning postgres:

    local      all     postgres     peer md5

    To know what version of postgresql you are running, look for the version folder under /etc/postgresql. Also, you can use Nano or other editor instead of VIM.

  4. Restart the database :

    sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart

    (Here you can check if it worked with psql -U postgres).

  5. Create a user having the same name as you (to find it, you can type whoami):

    sudo createuser -U postgres -d -e -E -l -P -r -s <my_name>

    The options tell postgresql to create a user that can login, create databases, create new roles, is a superuser, and will have an encrypted password. The really important ones are -P -E, so that you're asked to type the password that will be encrypted, and -d so that you can do a createdb.

    Beware of passwords: it will first ask you twice the new password (for the new user), repeated, and then once the postgres password (the one specified on step 2).

  6. Again, edit the pg_hba.conf file (see step 3 above), and change "peer" to "md5" on the line concerning "all" other users:

    local      all     all     peer md5

  7. Restart (like in step 4), and check that you can login without -U postgres:

    psql template1

    Note that if you do a mere psql, it will fail since it will try to connect you to a default database having the same name as you (i.e. whoami). template1 is the admin database that is here from the start.

  8. Now createdb <dbname> should work.