can't authenticate user in postgres docker container

Question

containerizing a django app built with the pydanny cookiecutter for deployment to an EC2 instance. the docker_compose.yml is pretty straigtforward:

version: '2'

volumes:
  postgres_data: {}
  postgres_backup: {}

services:
  postgres:
    build: ./compose/postgres
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - postgres_backup:/backups
    env_file: .env

  ....

nothing exotic in the dockefile; just pointers to backup and restore scripts and commands to make them executable:

FROM postgres:9.4

# add backup scripts
ADD backup.sh /usr/local/bin/backup
ADD restore.sh /usr/local/bin/restore
ADD list-backups.sh /usr/local/bin/list-backups

# make them executable
RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/restore
RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/list-backups
RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/backup

I've tried several variations on my db env variables, the latest of which looks like:

# PostgreSQL
POSTGRES_PASSWORD='postgrespass'
POSTGRES_USER='postgres'

the container builds and initializes without problem on:

docker-compose build postgres
docker-compose up -d

but when I try to make and migrate initial data to the db with:

docker-compose run django /usr/local/bin/python manage.py makemigrations

the db is unresponsive – "Postgres is unavailable - sleeping" and docker logs db returns:

DETAIL:  Connection matched pg_hba.conf line 95: "host all all all md5"
FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "'postgres'"

obviously I have some permission issues, but I'm not quite sure how to address them. My containers are running on an Ubuntu 16.04 AMI.

Amrit · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-30 13:36:47Z

1

You can go to psql console and change the password for user postgres by typing following commands in your terminal

sudo -u postgres psql
postgres=# \password
Enter new password:
Enter it again:
postgres=#

Or To reset the password if you have forgotten:

ALTER USER "user_name" WITH PASSWORD 'new_password';

answered Jan 30, 2017 at 13:36

Amrit

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2 Comments

kjarsenal Over a year ago

You'd have to reach the remote instance with something like "psql -h 68.152.13.25 -p 5432 -U postgres --password" the problem with that is you just generate the same authentication error.

Amrit Over a year ago

For password less login: sudo -u user_name psql db_name @kjarsenal

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