<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >The Password File</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="libpq - C Library" HREF="libpq.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Environment Variables" HREF="libpq-envars.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="SSL Support" HREF="libpq-ssl.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2007-02-02T03:57:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq-envars.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 27. <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >libpq</SPAN > - C Library</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq-ssl.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="LIBPQ-PGPASS" >27.12. The Password File</A ></H1 ><A NAME="AEN24787" ></A ><A NAME="AEN24789" ></A ><P >The file <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >.pgpass</TT > in a user's home directory is a file that can contain passwords to be used if the connection requires a password (and no password has been specified otherwise). On Microsoft Windows the file is named <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >%APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf</TT > (where <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >%APPDATA%</TT > refers to the Application Data subdirectory in the user's profile).</P ><P >This file should contain lines of the following format: </P><PRE CLASS="SYNOPSIS" ><TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >hostname</I ></TT >:<TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >port</I ></TT >:<TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >database</I ></TT >:<TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >username</I ></TT >:<TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >password</I ></TT ></PRE ><P> Each of the first four fields may be a literal value, or <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >*</TT >, which matches anything. The password field from the first line that matches the current connection parameters will be used. (Therefore, put more-specific entries first when you are using wildcards.) If an entry needs to contain <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >:</TT > or <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >\</TT >, escape this character with <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >\</TT >.</P ><P >The permissions on <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >.pgpass</TT > must disallow any access to world or group; achieve this by the command <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >chmod 0600 ~/.pgpass</TT >. If the permissions are less strict than this, the file will be ignored. (The file permissions are not currently checked on Microsoft Windows, however.)</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq-envars.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq-ssl.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Environment Variables</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="libpq.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >SSL Support</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
