Overview

The default configuration of PostgreSQL does not allow incoming connections from external machines.

External PostgreSQL connections

1. To be able to reach the server remotely you have to add the following line into the file: /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf:

listen_addresses = '*'

2. PostgreSQL by default refuses all connections it receives from any remote address. You have to relax these rules by adding this line to /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf:

host all all  0.0.0.0/0 md5

This is an access control rule that lets anyone login from any address if a valid password is provided (the md5 keyword). You can use your network/mask instead of 0.0.0.0/0 to only allow access from certain IP addresses.

3. When you have applied these modifications to your configuration files, you will need to restart the PostgreSQL server.

/etc/init.d/postgresql start

Now, you will be able to login to your server remotely.