Re: .pgpass not working

[Rebecca Clarke <r.clarke83@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ben

I had saved the .pgpass file in my home directory /home/user/.pgpass which works when I'm logged in as user. However, in order for me to use Slony, I had to be logged in as postgres user. 

I installed strace and ran my pg_dump test and found that it actually looks for the .pgpass file in /var/lib/postgresql  (which I'm assuming is the postgres users home directory as this is the directory where I begin in when I log in).

I made a copy of the .pgpass and saved it in that location and it worked!

Many thanks.

Rebecca

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Ben Chobot <bench@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 4, 2012, at 9:30 AM, Rebecca Clarke wrote:

I do not want to touch the pg_hba.conf so I have generated the .pgpass file.

The permissions is set to 600, and I have correctly inputted the details into .pgpass, there are no leading spaces.

myhostname:myport:*:postgres:mypassword

However I am still prompted for a password.

I have tested pg_dump as well and it prompts also.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what may be the culprit. Is there somewhere I need to specify to tell the system to look into the .pgpass file?

Where is the .pgpass file? If it's not in ~/.pgpass or doesn't have the right ownership (your permissions are good) then it won't be used. If it's in a different location, you might need to make use of the PGPASSFILE environment variable.

If you really get stuck, you can always strace psql or pg_dump and see if it has problems opening your .pgpass file.