diff --git a/src/backend/libpq/hba.c b/src/backend/libpq/hba.c
index a134b45..931ca86 100644
--- a/src/backend/libpq/hba.c
+++ b/src/backend/libpq/hba.c
@@ -1307,11 +1307,14 @@ load_hba(void)
 
 	file = AllocateFile(HbaFileName, "r");
 	/* Failure is fatal since with no HBA entries we can do nothing... */
-	if (file == NULL)
-		ereport(FATAL,
+	if (file == NULL) 
+	{
+		ereport(WARNING,
 				(errcode_for_file_access(),
 				 errmsg("could not open configuration file \"%s\": %m",
 						HbaFileName)));
+		return false;
+	}
 
 	tokenize_file(HbaFileName, file, &hba_lines, &hba_line_nums);
 	FreeFile(file);