PG_DUMP without asking password

If you run it on the same server, with a user who has permission to
access the db using ident (e.g. user "postgres"),
i.e. you have a pg_hba.conf entry like:
local all postgres ident sameuser

Then pg_dump and pg_dumpall will not require a password.

Alternatively, you can create a .pgpass file in the users home directory
(if ident not available, but you *need* to think about the permissions
of this file and ramifications)

Terry

Terry Fielder
terry@greatgulfhomes.com
Associate Director Software Development and Deployment
Great Gulf Homes / Ashton Woods Homes
Fax: (416) 441-9085

Alain Roger wrote:

Hm, depends on how the security settings of the database are set. For local
users you could set in the pg_hba.conf ident as authentication method. Then
they won't need a password anymore.
See the pg_hba.conf documentation for more infos.
Another way could be to execute the dump script under a privileged user. For
my machines here, the user postgres can dump all databases without entering
a password.
If you backup your database via a cron job started by root, you can simply
do a su postgres -c ... to run the backupjob under user postgres.

-- Matthias

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Alain Roger
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 1:32 PM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: [GENERAL] PG_DUMP without asking password

Hi,

is there a way to backup the database thanks a command script, without
postgresql requesting the user password ?

thanks a lot,

Alain