<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Authentication problems</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="Client Authentication" HREF="client-authentication.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Authentication methods" HREF="auth-methods.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Localization" HREF="charset.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="auth-methods.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 19. Client Authentication</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="charset.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="CLIENT-AUTHENTICATION-PROBLEMS" >19.3. Authentication problems</A ></H1 ><P > Genuine authentication failures and related problems generally manifest themselves through error messages like the following. </P ><P ></P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >FATAL: no pg_hba.conf entry for host "123.123.123.123", user "andym", database "testdb"</PRE ><P> This is what you are most likely to get if you succeed in contacting the server, but it does not want to talk to you. As the message suggests, the server refused the connection request because it found no authorizing entry in its <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >pg_hba.conf</TT > configuration file. </P ><P ></P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >FATAL: Password authentication failed for user "andym"</PRE ><P> Messages like this indicate that you contacted the server, and it is willing to talk to you, but not until you pass the authorization method specified in the <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >pg_hba.conf</TT > file. Check the password you are providing, or check your Kerberos or ident software if the complaint mentions one of those authentication types. </P ><P ></P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >FATAL: user "andym" does not exist</PRE ><P> The indicated user name was not found. </P ><P ></P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >FATAL: database "testdb" does not exist</PRE ><P> The database you are trying to connect to does not exist. Note that if you do not specify a database name, it defaults to the database user name, which may or may not be the right thing. </P ><DIV CLASS="TIP" ><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="TIP" ><P ><B >Tip: </B > The server log may contain more information about an authentication failure than is reported to the client. If you are confused about the reason for a failure, check the log. </P ></BLOCKQUOTE ></DIV ></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="auth-methods.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="charset.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Authentication methods</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Localization</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >