postgresql - Cannot connect to postgres from remote host

Question

I have a database server (192.168.1.50) running postgres. I have created a database named "testdb" and a user "testuser" with password "testuserpw".
Locally, I can connect to the db using:

psql -d testdb -U testuser

When I issue the command from another host (192.168.1.60):

psql -h 192.168.1.50 -d testdb -U testuser

I have the error:

psql: could not connect to server: Connection refused
Is the server running on host "192.168.1.50" and accepting
TCP/IP connections on port 5432?

Any idea ?

Answer 1

Check the setting of listen_addresses in your postgresql.conf file. Many distributions make it default to 127.0.0.1, i.e. listen only to connections coming in from localhost. It should be set to '*' to listen for connections on all interfaces.

If you are still having trouble, use lsof to see what network sockets the postgres process is listening on.