I want to access by postgre db over the internet. My pg_hba.conf if setup to do this: host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5 Now, what I don't understand is how does the "md5" effect things? If I connect via php: $db = pg_connect('host=xx.xx.xx.xx port=5433 dbname=MYDB user=postgres password=mypass'); "mypass" being whatever my password is; is still set in plain text? Why don't I have to send the md5 version of the password to connect? Thanks, Vince.