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I'm trying to run rake db:create with postgresql on a DigitalOcean server.

However, it's returning the error Peer authentication failed for user "rails", referring to config/database.yml where the credentials to log in are stored

What's strange is that these are the exact credentials displayed to me in plain text when I log into the server through SSH. I've tried both <%= ENV['APP_DATABASE_PASSWORD'] %> and the password displayed to me in plain text and the same thing happens.

The environment is in production, which I have to enforce manually because the app is in development on startup and forcing it to change in config/environments.rb isn't working.

If I had to guess I might say that something funny is happening with the environment, because DigitalOcean will continue to serve a cached version of the site until the server is restarted and it might still think it's in development as far as it's concerned. But I'm in kind of a catch-22 until I figure out how to force it into production on startup.

This question is what I've arrived at after a lot of tribulation with postgres and trying to set up a database on the backend, so I need to be walked through a couple things.

Many thanks.

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    In my case, I forgot specify the host in database.yml i.e. localhost. By default PG is configured to accept all calls from localhost or 127.0.0.1 Commented Jan 22, 2017 at 12:47

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The problem is with your pg_hba.conf file. Which you can find in /etc/postgresql/9.3/main/pg_hba.conf. Here 9.3 is postgres version, you can change with your postgres version. More detail about authentication is here.

You have code something like :

# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHOD # "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only local all all peer

You can either change it to md5 or trust.

# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHOD # "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only local all all trust

It will fix your problem.

Note : To edit pg_hba.conf file you should have sudo permission on server.

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7 Comments

That fixed the problem. Is that a step backwards in terms of security, though?
Not working for me... is it necessary to restart PosgreSql server?
Yes, Sometime you need to restart system also. In never version of postgres 9.4, I have experience we don't need to make any such settings
@DipakG. Can you tell me that after edit this file from terminal how to save changes. i have same issue i am trying it but my file is not save changes frm me
To save this file you must have sudo access. You can open file in vim or gedit editor. sudo vi /etc/postgresql/9.3/main/pg_hba.conf or sudo gedit /etc/postgresql/9.3/main/pg_hba.conf. gedit provide visual interface so use gedit command. Let me know if you need any other help.
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