Re: School teacher in need of HELP

On Sat, 5 Mar 2011 15:33:50 -0500
<hbailey17(at)nyc(dot)rr(dot)com> wrote:

> Hello,
I tried to enter the commands on the SQL Shell(psql) from
> which line 1 reads Server [localhost], line 2 –Database[postgres]:
> and I entered postgres, line 3 – Port[____], which number I entered),
> line 4 - Username[postgres], where I entered postgres, line 5
> Password for the postres: ....... which returned the message
> FATAL : password authentication failed for user “postgres”..... Press
> any key to continue.
>
> Can you help me understand how to start accessing the server database
> capabilities and/or mention on online support blog.

Hi Hilary,

It can be a bit confusing and annoying to set up Postgresql for the
first time, and it would be helpful to know what platform you have it
on. (i.e. Win? Linux? if so which distro?) I originally set up under
Fedora and just recently set it up under Debian, there are some
differences. I'm not sure under Win.

The first thing you should do is create a new user and here's a link to
general online documentation:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/interactive/index.html
And a page about creating users:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/interactive/sql-createuser.html

You'll generally want to create a user with the same user name as your
desktop login user name if you want to use 'trust' authentication,
it'll make it easier. Give that user / role 'superuser' ability. Then,
as that user you'll be able to create a db and access it, etc. I'd
suggest you probably want to create a db that doesn't match a user
(role) name, i.e. call it 'mystuff' or 'testdb1' or something.

And in particular, here's the section on authentication,
the defaults differ depending on the distro:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/interactive/client-authentication.html