Password Management passwords Password Management Options passwords options for managing For security purposes it's desirable to protect database access using a password. PostgreSQL has three ways of providing a password: including the password in the string (e.g. "host=node1 dbname=repmgr user=repmgr password=foo") exporting the password as an environment variable (PGPASSWORD) storing the password in a dedicated password file We strongly advise against including the password in the string, as this will result in the database password being exposed in various places, including in the repmgr.conf file, the repmgr.nodes table, any output generated by &repmgr; which lists the node strings (e.g. repmgr cluster show) and in the &repmgr; log file, particularly at . Currently &repmgr; does not fully support use of the option in the string. Exporting the password as an environment variable (PGPASSWORD) is considered less insecure, but the PostgreSQL documentation explicitly recommends against doing this:
Environment Variables PGPASSWORD behaves the same as the connection parameter. Use of this environment variable is not recommended for security reasons, as some operating systems allow non-root users to see process environment variables via ps; instead consider using a password file.
The most secure option for managing passwords is to use a dedicated password file; see the following section for more details. Using a password file pgpass .pgpass passwords using a password file The most secure way of storing passwords is in a password file, which by default is ~/.pgpass. This file can only be read by the system user who owns the file, and PostgreSQL will refuse to use the file unless read/write permissions are restricted to the file owner. The password(s) contained in the file will not be directly accessed by &repmgr; (or any other libpq-based client software such as psql). For full details see the PostgreSQL password file documentation. For use with &repmgr;, the ~/.pgpass must two entries for each node in the replication cluster: one for the &repmgr; user who accesses the &repmgr; metadatabase, and one for replication connections (regardless of whether a dedicated replication user is used). The file must be present on each node in the replication cluster. A ~/.pgpass file for a 3-node cluster where the repmgr database user is used for both for accessing the &repmgr; metadatabase and for replication connections would look like this: node1:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node1:5432:replication:repmgr:foo node2:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node2:5432:replication:repmgr:foo node3:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node3:5432:replication:repmgr:foo If a dedicated replication user (here: repluser) is in use, the file would look like this: node1:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node1:5432:replication:repluser:foo node2:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node2:5432:replication:repluser:foo node3:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node3:5432:replication:repluser:foo If you are planning to use the / option, there must also be an entry enabling the superuser to connect to the &repmgr; database. Assuming the superuser is postgres, the file would look like this: node1:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node1:5432:repmgr:postgres:foo node1:5432:replication:repluser:foo node2:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node2:5432:repmgr:postgres:foo node2:5432:replication:repluser:foo node3:5432:repmgr:repmgr:foo node3:5432:repmgr:postgres:foo node3:5432:replication:repluser:foo The ~/.pgpass file can be simplified with the use of wildcards if there is no requirement to restrict provision of passwords to particular hosts, ports or databases. The preceding file could then be formatted like this: *:*:*:repmgr:foo *:*:*:postgres:foo It's possible to specify an alternative location for the ~/.pgpass file, either via the environment variable PGPASSFILE, or (from PostgreSQL 9.6) using the passfile parameter in connection strings. If using the passfile parameter, it's essential to ensure the file is in the same location on all nodes, as when connecting to a remote node, the file referenced is the one on the local node. Additionally, you must specify the passfile location in repmgr.conf with the option so &repmgr; can write the correct path when creating the parameter for replication configuration on standbys.