Re: Can't connect to socket in Debian distribution

Thank you so much, Tom. In the confusion of trying to solve this problem, I had changed this line:
local        all                                           ident sameuser
to this:
local        all                                           md5
but, when it didn't work, I changed it back, then forgot about it. Just now, as you suggested, when I changed it back
tomd5 from ident, it worked fine. 

Thank you again for your help. Happy Thanksgiving.

-Kevin

>>> Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> 11/27/02 03:30PM >>>
"KEVIN ZEMBOWER" <KZEMBOWER@jhuccp.org> writes:
> www2:/home/kevinz# psql -W mnogosearch mnogosearch
> Password:
> psql: FATAL 1:  IDENT authentication failed for user "mnogosearch"
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> When I 'su mnogosearch' I can then 'psql mnogosearch' , never get asked for a password, and get into psql immediately
andwithout a problem. 

Indeed, because you haven't got it configured to use password
authentication: you have it configured to use IDENT, which looks at the
Unix userid you are running as.  That has to match the Postgres userid
you are trying to connect as.

> One thing I don't understand is the difference between:
> psql -W <dbname> <username>
> and:
> psql -W -U <username> <dbname>
> My reference book leads me to believe that there's no difference. Is there?

AFAICS there should be no difference ... just a matter of taste.

            regards, tom lane