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Thread: Can you help a newbie?

Can you help a newbie?

From
"Jamie Bumsted"
Date:
Hi All,
I am new to pgsql, I have inherited a database with no documentation, i.e.
nobody knows the passwords for any of the database accounts.  Anybody have
any ideas on how to change the passwords without first knowing the
passwords?
If this is a stupid question I apologize in advance.

Thanks!

Jamie Bumsted
Systems Engineer
Evertek, Inc.

RE: Can you help a newbie?

From
"Mayers, Philip J"
Date:
Hmm... very suspicious...

However, if you have root on that machine, try this:

su - root
su - postgres
cd /var/lib/pgsql/data
vi pg_hba.conf

add:

local databasename trust

Restart postgres, Switch back to your user, then try:

psql databasename postgres

Bingo, you're in as the DB admin. GRANT <blah> from here on in.

Regards,
Phil

+----------------------------------+
| Phil Mayers, Network Support     |
| Centre for Computing Services    |
| Imperial College                 |
+----------------------------------+

-----Original Message-----
From: Jamie Bumsted [mailto:jbumsted@evertek.net]
Sent: 07 February 2001 12:53
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: [GENERAL] Can you help a newbie?


Hi All,
I am new to pgsql, I have inherited a database with no documentation, i.e.
nobody knows the passwords for any of the database accounts.  Anybody have
any ideas on how to change the passwords without first knowing the
passwords?
If this is a stupid question I apologize in advance.

Thanks!

Jamie Bumsted
Systems Engineer
Evertek, Inc.

Re: Can you help a newbie?

From
Karel Zak
Date:
On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Jamie Bumsted wrote:

> Hi All,
> I am new to pgsql, I have inherited a database with no documentation, i.e.
> nobody knows the passwords for any of the database accounts.  Anybody have
> any ideas on how to change the passwords without first knowing the
> passwords?

 As system root user you can see pg_pwd file in postgres data dir (probably
in /var/postgres or /var/lib/postgres ..etc.), password aren't encrypted.

                Karel

Re: Can you help a newbie?

From
Richard Poole
Date:
On Wed, Feb 07, 2001 at 06:53:13AM -0600, Jamie Bumsted wrote:
> Hi All,
> I am new to pgsql, I have inherited a database with no documentation, i.e.
> nobody knows the passwords for any of the database accounts.  Anybody have
> any ideas on how to change the passwords without first knowing the
> passwords?

You can edit your pg_hba.conf to allow local access with no passwords
(add a line like "local all trust" above other non-comment lines) and
then connect to the database as the database superuser (usually
"postgres") and use "alter user" to change the passwords to whatever
you like. Don't forget to change pg_hba.conf back afterwards.

Richard

Re: Can you help a newbie?

From
Holger Klawitter
Date:
Jamie Bumsted wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> I am new to pgsql, I have inherited a database with no documentation, i.e.
> nobody knows the passwords for any of the database accounts.  Anybody have
> any ideas on how to change the passwords without first knowing the
> passwords?
> If this is a stupid question I apologize in advance.

There are different ways of password protecting a database. postgres may even
rely on the host based user authentification. The internal passwords, however,
are stored in $PGHOME/data/pg_pwd in plain text.

I thinks it's obvious enough not to make secret out of it :-)

With kind regards / Mit freundlichem Gruß
    Holger Klawitter
--
Holger Klawitter
holger@klawitter.de                             http://www.klawitter.de