>> and the pg_hba.conf file has the following lines in it:
>>
>> local all crypt
>> host all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 crypt
>>
>> Now when I try to connect to a database (locally) using psql I get the
>> following:
>>
>> psql: Password authentication failed for user 'postgres'
Well, you are specifying crypt (ie, password-based) authentication,
so this is hardly an unexpected message. If you look in the
postmaster's logfile (whereever you redirected its stdout/stderr to;
do not start it with -S if you want a logfile) then there should be
additional information about the authentication failure. For obvious
security reasons the postmaster doesn't report everything it knows to
the rejected client, but it tells more in the log.
I'm betting that you forgot to set up a password for the postgres user.
You will need to use a non-password-based auth mechanism at least for
long enough to set the password --- or use one of the variant setups
where the passwords are kept in a separate flat file rather than in the
database (see pg_passwd).
regards, tom lane