"Partha Sur" <p.sur@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> -bash-2.05b$ psql -U psur mytest
> psql:FATAL:IDENT authentication failed for user "psur"
Evidently you selected ident authentication in pg_hba.conf. The ident
code is explicitly designed to prevent you from logging in as a Postgres
user name different from your Unix login name --- that is, you surely
can not use -U when using ident auth.
It is possible to get around this with "ident maps" that say which OS
user names are allowed to connect as which Postgres user names. But
I think use of ident maps probably indicates that you haven't thought
through exactly what your security strategy is.
If you are just playing around trying to learn Postgres on a personal
machine, you may as well set your auth method to "trust" and not think
about security. But I counsel revisiting the issue before you go to
production...
regards, tom lane