Re: [GENERAL] How do I activate and change the postgres user's password?

Lincoln Yeoh wrote:
  >Right now any user on the local machine can log on as postgres to the
  >template1 database. I don't like that, so I wish to turn on password
  >checking.
  >
  >OK so I edit pg_hba.conf and put:
  >
  >local        all                                         password
  >host         all         127.0.0.1     255.255.255.255   password
  >
  >Then I have problems logging in as ANY user. Couldn't figure out what the
  >default password for the postgres user was. Only after some messing around
  >I found that I could log on as the postgres user with the password \N. Not
  >obvious, at least to me.
  >
  >I only guessed it after looking at the pg_pwd file and noticing a \N there.
  >Is this where the passwords are stored? By the way should they be stored in
  >the clear and in a 666 permissions file? How about hashing them with some
  >salt?

The PGDATA directory should have permission rwx------, so that no one can
descend into it to look at pg_pwd; therefore the file's own permissions are
unimportant.

  >Now the next problem is: How do I change the postgres user password?

ALTER USER will change passwords held in pg_shadow, including that of the
postgres user, but will not, I think, change those set by pg_passwd.


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