'password authentication failed for user "postgres"'

Question

I have installed PostgreSQL 8.4, Postgres client and Pgadmin 3. Authentication failed for user "postgres" for both console client and Pgadmin. I have typed user as "postgres" and password "postgres", because it worked before. But now authentication is failed. I did it before a couple of times without this problem. What should I do? And what happens? ``` psql -U postgres -h localhost -W Password for user postgres: psql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres" FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres" ```

Accepted Answer

If I remember correctly the user `postgres` has no DB password set on Ubuntu by default. That means, that you can login to that account only by using the `postgres` OS user account.

Assuming, that you have `root` access on the box you can do:

```
sudo -u postgres psql
```

If that fails with a `database "postgres" does not exists` error, then you are most likely not on a Ubuntu or Debian server :-) In this case simply add `template1` to the command:

```
sudo -u postgres psql template1
```

If any of those commands fail with an error `psql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres"` then check the file `/etc/postgresql/8.4/main/pg_hba.conf`: There must be a line like this as the first non-comment line:

```
local   all         postgres                          ident
```

For newer versions of PostgreSQL `ident` actually might be `peer`. That's OK also.

Inside the `psql` shell you can give the DB user `postgres` a password:

```
ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'newPassword';
```

You can leave the `psql` shell by typing CtrlD or with the command `\q`.

Now you should be able to give pgAdmin a valid password for the DB superuser and it will be happy too. :-)

'password authentication failed for user "postgres"'

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