'I forgot the password I entered during postgres installation

I either forgot or mistyped (during the installation) the password to the default user of Postgres. I can't seem to be able to run it and I get the following error:

psql: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "hisham"
hisham-agil: hisham$ psql

Is there anyway to reset the password or how do I create a new user with superuser privileges?

I am new to Postgres and just installed it for the first time. I am trying to use it with Rails and I am running Mac OS X Lion.

Solution 1:^[1]

find the file pg_hba.conf - it may be located, for example in /etc/postgresql-9.1/pg_hba.conf.

cd /etc/postgresql-9.1/
Back it up

cp pg_hba.conf pg_hba.conf-backup
place the following line (as either the first un-commented line, or as the only one):

For all occurrence of below (local and host) , except replication section if you don't have any it has to be changed as follow ,no MD5 or Peer authentication should be present.

local  all   all   trust

restart your PostgreSQL server (e.g., on Linux:)

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart

If the service (daemon) doesn't start reporting in log file:

local connections are not supported by this build

you should change

local all all trust

to

host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust
you can now connect as any user. Connect as the superuser postgres (note, the superuser name may be different in your installation. In some systems it is called pgsql, for example.)

psql -U postgres

or

psql -h 127.0.0.1 -U postgres

(note that with the first command you will not always be connected with local host)
Reset password ('replace my_user_name with postgres since you are resetting postgres user)

ALTER USER my_user_name with password 'my_secure_password';
Restore the old pg_hba.conf as it is very dangerous to keep around

cp pg_hba.conf-backup pg_hba.conf
restart the server, in order to run with the safe pg_hba.conf

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart

Further Reading about that pg_hba file: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/auth-pg-hba-conf.html

Solution 2:^[2]

When connecting to postgres from command line, don't forget to add -h localhost as command line parameter. If not, postgres will try to connect using PEER authentication mode.

The below shows a reset of the password, a failed login with PEER authentication and a successful login using a TCP connection.

# sudo -u postgres psql
could not change directory to "/root"
psql (9.1.11)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \password
Enter new password:
Enter it again:
postgres=# \q

Failing:

# psql -U postgres -W
Password for user postgres:
psql: FATAL:  Peer authentication failed for user "postgres"

Working with -h localhost:

# psql -U postgres -W  -h localhost
Password for user postgres:
psql (9.1.11)
SSL connection (cipher: DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, bits: 256)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

Solution 3:^[3]

The pg_hba.conf (C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.3\data) file has changed since these answers were given. What worked for me, in Windows, is to open the file and change the METHOD from md5 to trust:

# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD

# IPv4 local connections:
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 trust

Then, using pgAdmin III, I logged in using no password and changed user postgres' password by going to File -> Change Password

Solution 4:^[4]

I was just having this problem on Windows 10 and the issue in my case was that I was just running psql and it was defaulting to trying to log in with my Windows username ("Nathan"), but there was no PostgreSQL user with that name, and it wasn't telling me that.

So the solution was to run psql -U postgres rather than just psql, and then the password I entered at installation worked.

Solution 5:^[5]

Just a note, on Linux You can simply run sudo su - postgres to become the postgres user and from there change what required using psql.

Solution 6:^[6]

Edit the file /etc/postgresql/<version>/main/pg_hba.conf and find the following line:
```
local   all             postgres                                md5
```
Edit the line and change md5 at the end to trust and save the file
Reload the postgresql service
```
$ sudo service postgresql reload
```
This will load the configuration files. Now you can modify the postgres user by logging into the psql shell
```
$ psql -U postgres
```

Update the postgres user's password

alter user postgres with password 'secure-passwd-here';

Edit the file /etc/postgresql/<version>/main/pg_hba.conf and change trust back to md5 and save the file
Reload the postgresql service
```
$ sudo service postgresql reload
```
Verify that the password change is working
```
$ psql -U postgres -W
```

Solution 7:^[7]

FOR WINDOWS: (what has helped me)

This is the link I am referring to: https://qsartoolbox.org/content/documents/ResettingPostgreSQLPassword.pdf

Open your cmd and go to C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\12\data This is usually the right path. You might have it stored somewhere else. Note that, if you have a different postgresql version, there will be a different number. That doesn't matter.
Find a pg_hba.conf file and copy it to somewhere else (That way you will have an unmodified version of this file, so you will be able to look at it after we make some changes)
Open pg_hba.conf file (not the backup, but the original)
Find the multiple lines that start with host near the bottom of the file:

host all all 127.0.0.1/32 md5

host all all ::1/128 md5

host replication all 127.0.0.1/32 md5

host replication all ::1/128 md5
Replace md5 with trust:

host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust

host all all ::1/128 trust

host replication all 127.0.0.1/32 trust

host replication all ::1/128 trust
Close this file
Go to your search bar on windows and open Services app. Find postgres and restart it. picture of services app
Write cd.. in cmd and then cd bin. Your path should be C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\12\bin
Enter: psql -U postgres -h localhost
Enter: ALTER USER postgres with password '<your new password>';Make sure that you include ; at the end “ALTER ROLE” should be displayed as an indication that the previous line was executed successfully
Open original pg_hba.conf file and change back from trust to md5
Restart the server with Services app as before

Solution 8:^[8]

Adding the answer for Windows User for the latest postgres version (>10),

Go to your postgres installation location, and search for pg_hba.conf, you will find it in ..\postgres\data\pg_hba.conf

Open that file with notepad, find this line,

# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD

# IPv4 local connections: 
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 md5
#..

Change the method from md5 to trust,

# TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD

# IPv4 local connections: 
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all             all             ::1/128                 trust
# ...

Now go to your SQL Shell(PSQL) and leave everything blank,

Server [localhost]:
Database [postgres]:
Port [8000]:
Username [postgres]:

It will not ask for password this time, and you will be logged in,

Now run this line, ALTER USER yourusername WITH SUPERUSER

Now you can leave the shell with \q

Again go to the file pg_hba.conf and change METHOD from trust to md5 again, and save it.

Now login with your new user and password and you can check \du for its attributes.

Solution 9:^[9]

What I did to resolve the same problem was:

Open pg_hba.conf file with gedit editor from the terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/postgresql/9.5/main/pg_hba.conf

It will ask for password. Enter your admin login password. This will open gedit with the file. Paste the following line:

host  all   all  127.0.0.1/32  trust

just below -

# Database administrative login by Unix domain socket

Save and close it. Close the terminal and open it again and run this command:

psql -U postgres

You will now enter the psql console. Now change the password by entering this:

ALTER USER [your prefered user name] with password '[desired password]';

If it says user does not exist then instead of ALTER use CREATE.

Lastly, remove that certain line you pasted in pg_hba and save it.

Solution 10:^[10]

For Windows installation, a Windows user is created. And "psql" use this user for connection to the port. If you change the PostgreSQL user's password, it won't change the Windows one. The commandline juste below works only if you have access to commandline.

Instead you could use Windows GUI application "c:\Windows\system32\lusrmgr.exe". This app manage users created by Windows. So you can now modify the password.

Solution 11:^[11]

If you are running postgresql on mac os, try these:

Edit the pg_hba.conf file
sudo vi /Library/PostgreSQL/9.2/data/pg_hba.conf
Change the "md5" method for all users to "trust" near the bottom of the file
Find the name of the service
ls /Library/LaunchDaemons
Look for postgresql
Stop the postgresql service
sudo launchctl stop com.edb.launchd.postgresql-9.2
Start the postgresql service
sudo launchctl start com.edb.launchd.postgresql-9.2
Start psql session as postgres
psql -U postgres
(shouldn't ask for password because of 'trust' setting)
Reset password in psql session by typing
ALTER USER postgres with password 'secure-new-password';
\q
enter
Edit the pg_hba.conf file
Switch it back to 'md5'
Restart services again

Solution 12:^[12]

If you are in windows you can just run

net user postgres postgres

and login in postgres with postgres/postgres as user/password

Solution 13:^[13]

The file .pgpass in a user's home directory or the file referenced by PGPASSFILE 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 %APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf (where %APPDATA% refers to the Application Data subdirectory in the user's profile).

This file should contain lines of the following format:

hostname:port:database:username:password

(You can add a reminder comment to the file by copying the line above and preceding it with #.) Each of the first four fields can be a literal value, or *, 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 : or \, escape this character with . A host name of localhost matches both TCP (host name localhost) and Unix domain socket (pghost empty or the default socket directory) connections coming from the local machine. In a standby server, a database name of replication matches streaming replication connections made to the master server. The database field is of limited usefulness because users have the same password for all databases in the same cluster.

On Unix systems, the permissions on .pgpass must disallow any access to world or group; achieve this by the command chmod 0600 ~/.pgpass. If the permissions are less strict than this, the file will be ignored. On Microsoft Windows, it is assumed that the file is stored in a directory that is secure, so no special permissions check is made.

Solution 14:^[14]

Add below line to your pg_hba.conf file. which will be present in installation directory of postgres

hostnossl    all          all            0.0.0.0/0  trust

It will start working.

Solution 15:^[15]

This is what worked for me on windows:

Edit the pg_hba.conf file locates at C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.3\data.

# IPv4 local connections: host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust

Change the method from trust to md5 and restart the postgres service on windows.

After that, you can login using postgres user without password by using pgadmin. You can change password using File->Change password.

If postgres user does not have superuser privileges , then you cannot change the password. In this case , login with another user(pgsql)with superuser access and provide privileges to other users by right clicking on users and selecting properties->Role privileges.

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	Phil
Solution 2
Solution 3	SaiyanGirl
Solution 4
Solution 5
Solution 6	Ray Hunter
Solution 7	Vito Farina
Solution 8	Bidhan Majhi
Solution 9	Taufiq Rahman
Solution 10	cpunky
Solution 11	David
Solution 12	ivofernandes
Solution 13	rahulnikhare
Solution 14	John Conde
Solution 15	Chetan

'I forgot the password I entered during postgres installation

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Solution 4:[4]

Solution 5:[5]

Solution 6:[6]

Solution 7:[7]

Solution 8:[8]

Solution 9:[9]

Solution 10:[10]

Solution 11:[11]

Solution 12:[12]

Solution 13:[13]

Solution 14:[14]

Solution 15:[15]