Postgres gives an error of 'Password authentication failed

Postgres gives an error of 'Password authentication failed for user.

Make sure the password is in /var/lib/pgsql/.pgpass The format is as follows... *:*:*:postgres:PASSWORD Modify /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf It should contain the following... local all all md5 host all all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 md5 Change 'md5' to 'trust' to disable authentication then restart postgres. `/etc/init.d/postgresql restart` Now you should be able to connect to postgresql as user 'postgres' without a password to modify the password. `psql -u template1` Run the following sql command. "alter user postgres with password 'NEW PASSWORD HERE';" Finally change /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf back to its original format and restart postgresql one more time. Now you should be able to authenticate using user postgres and the password you specified.