Securing PostgreSQL Installation

The default authentication method in PostgreSQL is password authentication. To change this behavior or configure security options, we need to edit the pg_hba.conf file in our PostgreSQL installation. The file contains a list of entries that are used by the server for authentication and authorization when connecting clients. We can manipulate an entry to customize our server's security.

Setting up authentication

It’s also important to set up proper access control for our PostgreSQL server. This can be done by modifying the pg_hba.conf file, which controls which hosts and users are allowed to access our PostgreSQL server.

The pg_hba.conf file controls the IP addresses or hostnames that have access to the PostgreSQL server. It also defines the authentication methods for each type of connection and which PostgreSQL usernames can access which database. We can add, remove, or modify an entry in the file to customize the security of our server.

The command below displays the location of the pg_hba.config configuration file for the current database.