> I installed the RPMs and the service starts and runs. I added a user > and gave it a password, and gave the psql user "postgres" a different > password. But I can log on with neither. No, I didn't forget the > passwords :-) when you first start postgres you need to specify the database you are connecting to. when you connect you could use template1 as it is reinstalled with postgresql: psql -U postgres -d template1 However, it would be safer (especially for new db users) to first create a testing database with the shell command createdb. createdb mydb Of course, for all of this to work your pg_hba.conf file must be working order. > Searching for this sort of problem leads to a lot of the same thing, and > a lot of different responses about how the pg_hba.conf should read. > I've tried a huge number of variations, restarting the service between > each iteration. you can reference the following page for ideas: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/interactive/client-authentication.html#EXAMPLE-PG-HBA.CONF but to get started I would recommend: " TYPE DATABASE USER IP-ADDRESS IP-MASK METHOD local all all trust " > Normally, stuff like this is less painful with logs. But I can find no > working log file for psql. In /etc/init.d/postgresql, I found a line > PGLOG=/dev/null amd replaced it with PGLOG=/var/log/psqllog > /var/log/psqllog was created but is 0 length after restarting the > service and a few failed login attempts. Assuming there's no "This is > the exact reason why your logins don't work" answer, how do I get > logging working so as to at least have another clue? Let preface the next portion of my reply with the fact that I am not positive what I am says is true for Version 7 of postgresql. unless you specify otherwise, your log file will be located in your data directory. the first one is postgresql.log. The other log files are located in ../data/pg_log/ One point to be aware of, the type of messages that appear in the depends upon the setting of you postgresql.conf file. I hope some of this helps. Regards, Richard Broersma Jr.