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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Chapter 21. Client Authentication</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="runtime-config-short.html" title="20.18. Short Options" /><link rel="next" href="auth-pg-hba-conf.html" title="21.1. The pg_hba.conf File" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">Chapter 21. Client Authentication</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="runtime-config-short.html" title="20.18. Short Options">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html" title="Part III. Server Administration">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Part III. Server Administration</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="auth-pg-hba-conf.html" title="21.1. The pg_hba.conf File">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="chapter" id="CLIENT-AUTHENTICATION"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">Chapter 21. Client Authentication</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-pg-hba-conf.html">21.1. The <code class="filename">pg_hba.conf</code> File</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-username-maps.html">21.2. User Name Maps</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-methods.html">21.3. Authentication Methods</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-trust.html">21.4. Trust Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-password.html">21.5. Password Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="gssapi-auth.html">21.6. GSSAPI Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="sspi-auth.html">21.7. SSPI Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-ident.html">21.8. Ident Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-peer.html">21.9. Peer Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-ldap.html">21.10. LDAP Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-radius.html">21.11. RADIUS Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-cert.html">21.12. Certificate Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-pam.html">21.13. PAM Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="auth-bsd.html">21.14. BSD Authentication</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="client-authentication-problems.html">21.15. Authentication Problems</a></span></dt></dl></div><a id="id-1.6.8.2" class="indexterm"></a><p>
  When a client application connects to the database server, it
  specifies which <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> database user name it
  wants to connect as, much the same way one logs into a Unix computer
  as a particular user. Within the SQL environment the active database
  user name determines access privileges to database objects — see
  <a class="xref" href="user-manag.html" title="Chapter 22. Database Roles">Chapter 22</a> for more information. Therefore, it is
  essential to restrict which database users can connect.
 </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
   As explained in <a class="xref" href="user-manag.html" title="Chapter 22. Database Roles">Chapter 22</a>,
   <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> actually does privilege
   management in terms of <span class="quote"><span class="quote">roles</span></span>.  In this chapter, we
   consistently use <em class="firstterm">database user</em> to mean <span class="quote"><span class="quote">role with the
   <code class="literal">LOGIN</code> privilege</span></span>.
  </p></div><p>
  <em class="firstterm">Authentication</em> is the process by which the
  database server establishes the identity of the client, and by
  extension determines whether the client application (or the user
  who runs the client application) is permitted to connect with the
  database user name that was requested.
 </p><p>
  <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> offers a number of different
  client authentication methods. The method used to authenticate a
  particular client connection can be selected on the basis of
  (client) host address, database, and user.
 </p><p>
  <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> database user names are logically
  separate from user names of the operating system in which the server
  runs. If all the users of a particular server also have accounts on
  the server's machine, it makes sense to assign database user names
  that match their operating system user names. However, a server that
  accepts remote connections might have many database users who have no local
  operating system
  account, and in such cases there need be no connection between
  database user names and OS user names.
 </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="runtime-config-short.html" title="20.18. Short Options">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html" title="Part III. Server Administration">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="auth-pg-hba-conf.html" title="21.1. The pg_hba.conf File">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">20.18. Short Options </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 21.1. The <code class="filename">pg_hba.conf</code> File</td></tr></table></div></body></html>