Re: ident authentication failed for user postgres.

>  i tried to edit the pg_hba.conf file and added  host
> all     all      192.168.9.0.0/24  md5 under IPv4
> local connections as suggested in the message in
> pgadminIII,  but still it did not connect.

There might be two possible problems.

1.  I believe that when you change your pg_hba.conf you need to restart the server for the changes
to take effect.
2.  When you specify md5 authentication, both the user and the password must exist.  So in this
case, if you try to log in as postgres but have not specified a Postgresql password for postgres,
you will be denied access.

Notice:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/auth-methods.html#AUTH-PASSWORD
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/sql-alteruser.html
so...
psql> ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'your_new_password'

will allow you to authenticate your password using MD5.

Regards,

Richard Broersma Jr.