Hello-
I'm running several PostgreSQL Servers 9.3 running on Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Server (VM), and I'm using version 1.18.1 of pgAdmin.
I'm currently trying to install and test pgAgent on a localhost instance, and once everything works locally I plan on installing pgAgent on our development, staging and production servers.
The problem is with the database password ... the pgAgent service will not start unless the administration database user's password is included in the registry entry. The pgAgent installation doc Security Concerns section is pretty clear on using the ~/.pgpass method rather than storing the password in the registry.
The following is the entry in the\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\pgAgent\ImagePath registry key, which appears to controls the pgAdmin service startup:
C:\Program Files (x86)\pgAgent\bin\pgAgent RUN pgAgent hostaddr=127.0.0.1 port=5432 dbname=postgres user=postgres password=*********
I am using %APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf file to manage passwords, and it is working fine with numerous database services and databases in pgAdmin.
The first few lines of the pgpass.conf file is shown below. I would expect the last entry should work for pgAgent:
# Top of file
localhost:5432:ccms:ccms_admin:*****
localhost:5432:ccms:ccms_cpom:*****
localhost:5432:ccms:ccms_idr_tablet:****
localhost:5432:ccms:ccms_reports:****
localhost:5432:*:postgres:**********
# --- Other entries for other servers below
....
If the ImagePath registry node contains password=****, the pgAgent service starts and works fine.
If the password=**** is removed from ImagePath, the following message is received on pgAgent service startup:
"The PostgreSQL Scheduling Agent - pgAgent service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs."
The Application Event Viewer shows 10 Warnings "Couldn't create the primary connection (attempt x): fe_sendauth: no password supplied", followed by on Error "Stopping pgAgent: Couldn't establish the primary connection with the database server."
I've tried changing the Log On As user for the pgAgent service (currently Network Service), and made sure the specific user had proper read access rights to the %APPDATA%\postgresql\ folder. Doesn't seem to affect the issue.
I even tried moving the specific localhost pgpass.conf entry to the top of the file, no good.
Any suggestions?
-Jim
PS: Thank you for your great work!