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up vote 3 down vote favorite
2

I have a shell script which runs on deployment and I have these lines:

# Database
createdb $DBNAME
createuser -D -A $DBNAME

However, in my logs I get this error:

  • createdb: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL: Ident authentication failed for user "root"
  • createuser: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL: Ident authentication failed for user "root"

Would anyone mind telling me what is going wrong here and how I can correct my lines. Surely root should have permission to do this?

share|improve this question
up vote 3 down vote accepted

the best way to do this, especially if you want your script to be portable, is:

su --login postgres --command "createdb $DBNAME"

this should be safer, more secure, and more portable than using -U. i do it this way in all my posgreSQL scripts. you might find it a useful technique. obviously it still needs to be run as a root user (e.g. with sudo).

share|improve this answer
    
Ok, thank you Simon. – Jimmy Dec 8 '12 at 23:52
    
I install postgreSQL with apt-get which makes a postgres account automatically. Is there any need to create a seperate user account like I did in my first post? – Jimmy Dec 8 '12 at 23:53
    
depends if you want a separate user for that db. i nearly always do, since separation of privileges is usually a good idea :) – simon Dec 8 '12 at 23:53
up vote 2 down vote

If your DB is secured, you need to connect as a DB user, not as a user of the OS. For example:

createdb -U dbrootuser -W $DBNAME

See this link for full syntax

share|improve this answer
    
I get this: /usr/lib/postgresql/8.4/bin/createdb: invalid option -- 'u' – Jimmy Dec 8 '12 at 23:24
    
My bad, case sensitive (should be U), have edited answer. Dbl check the link there if you have questions/ideas about the syntax. – James Hornitzky Dec 8 '12 at 23:35

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