Re: Better auth errors from libpq

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 08:10:45PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:59:40 -0400
> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> > > psql: FATAL: Ident authentication failed for user "root"
> > > HINT: Is pg_hba.conf set properly on the server?
> >
> > Seems pretty useless. What does "set properly" mean? There isn't
> > even any good reason to think that the solution to most auth failures
> > is to change pg_hba.conf, so I'd bet that this hint is wrong far more
> > often than it's right.
>
> I think something like:
>
> psql: FATAL: Ident authentication failed for user "root"
> HINT: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/client-authentication.html
>
> Would be nice. Heck in most modern terminals the HINT would be
> clickable too :)

I'm all for something, and that's a much better something. What we
have now--nothing--actively distresses newbies for no good reason.

I don't know how many people we've lost right at that point, but the
number has to be high, as most people don't just hop into IRC with
their problem.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

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