PgAdmin 4 - How to connect to database via ssh tunnel as posgres when its password is empty?

Question

I am trying to connect to a Postgres database at my DigitalOcean instance via PgAdmin 4.

I create an SSH tunnel as root, provide the PgAdmin with my identify file. I want to login into database as postgres user which doesn't have a password.

So PgAdmin doesn't let me log in and requires the password for the postgres user.

Does user postgres have to have a password if I want to connect via SSH tunnel? Is it possible? And what should I do in order to connect?

step1-general [step2-connection step3-ssh-tunnel

• jjanes: What error are you getting? Usually a postgres password is ignored if not needed. Are you complaining about the database password, or the "identify file" password?
• Westave: About the database password. When I work with psql through a console, it doesn't require me to enter postgres password.
• jjanes: psql (by default) tries to connect without a password, and if rejected for want of a password it then asks for a password and tries again. That would be awkward to do in a GUI. If you use psql -W, it will ask for a password, and then ignore it if not needed.

Answer 1

Does user postgres have to have a password if I want to connect via SSH tunnel? Is it possible? And what should I do in order to connect?

Generally it does.

Your SSH tunnel is configured so that the remote SSH server connects to PostgreSQL through a TCP connection to localhost. And generally, a default pg_hba.conf maps this type of connection to the md5 authentication scheme, for which a password is required. Otherwise any user with a shell account could connect to PostgreSQL, which would be wrong as a default configuration.

The more common way to use PostgreSQL through a SSH tunnel is to set a password to the PostgreSQL databases accounts that you need to connect to. Use the \password command inside psql or the ALTER USER SQL statement.

• Westave: Thanks! I've created a separate user with a password and now I can connect to the DB.