Hi,

I am a complete newbie at this and my questions could sound very stupid but anyway:

I have to change the data in this pg_hba.conf file in order to be able to remotely edit my postgre/php system. Unfortunately I am not familiar to any extend with *nix OS or DOS commands. This is a complete darkness to me.

I somehow found that if I type:

locate pg_hba.conf

...and press enter, it gives me several possible locations of the file I searched for.

/usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
/usr/local/pgsql/data1/pg_hba.conf
/usr/local/pgsql/share/pg_hba.conf.sample
/home/user1/postgresql-7.4.7/src/backend/libpq/pg_hba.conf.sample

I am aware that there are two users of the system: "user1" and "user2".

My first question is:

I have loged the system as user1 and since I know the meaning of

/home/user1/postgresql-7.4.7/src/backend/libpq/pg_hba.conf.sample

what is the meaning of

/usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
/usr/local/pgsql/data1/pg_hba.conf

... and how to enter those directories?

My second question is: What command should I use to open and edit the file, when I get to it?

Thanks in advance!

Sena Aid

What do you mean by "what is the meaning of..."? locate tells you the locations of filenames matching what you've entered. Here, it tells you that there are files located in /usr/local/pgsql/data and /usr/local/pgsql/data1 named pg_hba.conf. You can enter those directories using cd, e.g. "cd /usr/local/pgsql/data1".

You can use any text editor to edit the files, it's up to you. You just need to follow the executable with the filename, e.g. "vi pg_hba.conf", "emacs pg_hba.conf", etc. You may find nano/pico easy to use and also you may need to become root to edit the files (which you can do with su).

Hi Spus & welcome to LQ


to change to this directory use:

One way to edit the file (there several different ways)

Or, to combine the two together do this:

gedit opens a window with the file in it, availble for editing

The first argument is the file name.

The & runs the command in the background, as opposed to running it exclusively. One should always use the ampersand when running anything that is going to open it's own window.

I am not sure of the specifics of PostgreSQL, but there is one other thing to be aware of:

Linux has files which are links, they are conceptually the same thing as a shortcut in windows. Be careful that some of the files found in your locate command could be links to 1 file - so you might only have to edit 1 file. When you look at the files user a file browser it should tell you whether it's link or not.

How to open Nautilus:

or open it from the main menu.

It's not a bad idea to fill in which distribution of Linux you are using, in your LQ profile. This info is rather helpful to those trying to help.


Nylex is faster at typing than me
anyway have a great time with Linux

Thank You both, now I can enter those directories and even read the file, using the vi command, but I still don know how to edit it.

Unfortunately non of the text editors You mentioned dos not work.

I also have an ftp access to the system, using user1 and user2 data to login, but it does not work with the su username and password.

As for the linux distribution, this is what I receive, when log in the system:

Last login: Mon Jun 12 15:50:25 2006 from *******************
Linux 2.4.26.

I can only say it is Slackware 10.xx or close to it, I do not know how to define it.

Thanks in advance.


Sena Aid

There's a guide to vi here.

If you are using vi, be careful!

press the "i" key to insert text (this is insert mode) then Escape key when finished inserting.

press the "x" key to delete 1 character.

type :wq to write & quit

or :q to quit without saving

even easier look on the menus for a text editor - just like windows with Copy, Paste, Cut.

Check out the man pages

Have fun. Nylex beat me again

Thank You!

I've found another one - mcedit, and it actually worked, so I've done it already.

Thanks again.


Sena Aid

Actually there is one more problem, obviously I have to restart the system for the changes to take effect, but I'm not sure how to do it remotely. I use Putty to connect to the server, and I do not know which server to restart, the Apache, the Postgre, or the Linux?

Please, I'm totally

You could just reboot the machine, that would be the easiest way and you'd at least know that everything was restarted.

If you only change the postgres configuration postgres is obviously
all you'll need to restart. If it's a slack-box there may (or may
not) be a special startup-script that you can use to do that, depending
on who and how they installed postgres.

If you have root-access something like (paths adjusted, of course)
should work ...


Cheers,
Tink