postgres in docker container role "postgres" does not exist

Question

Create a postgres docker container with below command: docker run -v /home/ec2-user/Vteck-postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data -d -e POSTGRES_USER=odoo POSTGRES_PASSWORD=odoo -e POSTGRES_DB=postgres --name vteck-db postgres
access Docker container: docker exec -it vteck-db bash
Connect with the client: root@f1ba565db798:/# psql -U postgres psql: error: could not connect to server: FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist

but if I create Docker container with docker run --rm -d -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=root --name postgres postgres, I can successfully connect with psql - U postgres.

Any problem with my first step's command?

anemyte · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-08 11:36:19Z

16

From postgres readme on Docker hub:

POSTGRES_USER

This optional environment variable is used in conjunction with POSTGRES_PASSWORD to set a user and its password. This variable will create the specified user with superuser power and a database with the same name. If it is not specified, then the default user of postgres will be used.

In other words if you put something into the POSTGRES_USER environment variable, the startup script will honor that and create that user instead of the default one (postgres, that is).

Also, this and other POSTGRES_* variables are only used during the initial startup, when the database directory is empty. So if you restart the container with some other value, it won't make any difference (you'll see in logs something about "database seems ok, skipping initialization") unless you manually deleted the database.

edited Apr 8, 2023 at 11:36

answered May 15, 2021 at 16:40

anemyte

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3 Comments

Nimr Sawafta Over a year ago

I'm having the same issue, this helped me understand the issue, thank you, now I'm looking for the command to login to PostgreSQL with odoo, I want to connect to the DB to build a REST API

anemyte Over a year ago

@NimrSawafta try this docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=odoo -it POSTGRES_CONTAINER_NAME psql -U odoo

kjbetz Over a year ago

Thank you so much @anemyte for your additional comment about intial startup and database directory being empty. This was my issue, I was making changes to fix logging in to the database, but the changes weren't taking affect because it was skipping those initialization steps.

Dharman · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-25 13:20:22Z

0

In your yml file, make a POSTGRES_DB that is NOT 'postgres'

<snip>
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: heavymetaldifficultmoeilijk
      POSTGRES_DB: foodb
<snip>

Connect to your container from the host:

# docker exec -it myproject_pg_container_name /bin/bash

Then, from the container:

root@d14c082e80c8:/# psql -U postgres

Michael

edited Mar 25, 2022 at 13:20

Dharman♦

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answered Mar 25, 2022 at 13:14

mistige

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