Mint 14/PostgreSQL: Peer authentication failed for user "someuser"

After you have installed PostgreSQL 9.1 on your Linux Mint 12/13/14, created a user login, a database with that user as the owner and try to connect to that database using that user, you may run into the following error:
Password for user someuser:
psql: FATAL:  Peer authentication failed for user “someuser”

If this is the case, you need to open up this file /etc/postgresql/9.1/main/pg_hba.conf in a text editor (with root privileges) and change this line:

local   all             all                                     peer

to this:

local   all             all                                     md5

After changing and saving the file, restart the PostgreSQL server:

sudo service postgresql restart
You should not have no issue connecting to your databases using the associated user.

Published by

Unknown's avatar

Tim Clark

Experienced Business Owner, Chief Information Officer, Vice President, Chief Software Architect, Application Architect, Project Manager, Software Developer, Senior Web Developer, Graphic Designer & 3D Modeler, University Instructor, University Program Chair, Academic Director. Specialties: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, JQuery, AJAX, Node.js, React.js, Angular.js, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQL Server, Responsive Design, HTML5, XHTML, CSS3, C#, ASP.net, Project Management, System Design/Architecture, Web Design, Web Development, Adobe CS6 (Photoshop, Illustrator)

Leave a comment