Re: Algorithm for generating md5 encrypted password not found in documentation

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Fred Cox <sailorfred(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/interactive/sql-createrole.html there is mention of a possibility of setting a password for a new role by supplying it in md5 format.  This format doesn't seem to be documented.
> "If the presented password string is already in MD5-encrypted format, then it is stored encrypted as-is"
> Looking at pg_dumpall let me know that the string needs to start with "md5" but a naive running if my password through the command line md5 utility and prefixing "md5" was not correct.

If I recall correctly, it's the username and the password concatenated
and md5'd, then "md5" prepended.

USER=...
PASS=...
MD5=`echo $USER$PASS | md5sum | cut -d' ' -f1`
echo "md5$MD5"

> If the algorithm is documented elsewhere, can it be linked from this page?

I don't remember where I figured that out, and I cannot find a
reference in the documentation either. +1 this suggestion.

Derrick