psql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user windows 8

windows postgresql authentication win64
Sarah cartenz picture Sarah cartenz · Jun 24, 2015 · Viewed 76.5k times · Source

I installed postgresql on windows and while the installation it asks to make a user for the account.This made a new windows user in my computer called postgres, I have created a password for it as well.

Now I want to run psql on windows command line, it asks for a password (without mentioning the user) and always gives me back the error: psql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "Ash". Even though I have put my accounts password many times.

using pgadmin I changed the user "postgres" to "Ash" but I have yet to remake the password. I followed the steps here: I forgot the password I entered during postgres installation (I rather types host all 127.0.0.1/32 trust because I am on windows), but when running psql again so that I can change the password I get the error: psql FATAL:could not load pg_hba.conf. All together.

Why can it not load? All I did was add an extra authentication option.

Also, is the windows user separated from a postresql user or are they the same(depend on each other)?

Edit:

As you can see, it did not give me the option to choose if Aisha should be a superuser or not. or the other options for that matter.

I also used pgadmin||| to create a new user but the same error pops up: enter image description here enter image description here

The user does not exist so why does it do this?

Answer

Sami Kuhmonen picture Sami Kuhmonen · Jun 24, 2015

The user on your machine has nothing to do with the user on PostgreSQL. The installer just creates an account and a PostgreSQL role with the same name and password (which in my mind is a bad idea), but they're not related in any way. The Windows user is used to run the server, the PostgreSQL role is used inside the database.

So you should first access the server with the user postgres and then create a user for yourself. Don't change the username inside the server, or the server's running user! Just create a new username and grant it the permissions you need.

You can use psql -U postgres to connect to the server and it'll ask for the password.

Check the permissions for pg_hba.conf, the postgres user must have permissions for it. If you only edited it as an admin, it should be ok, but if you took permissions or anything else, it may mess it up.

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