Charmed PostgreSQL VM Tutorial > 4. Manage passwords
Manage passwords
When we accessed PostgreSQL earlier in this tutorial, we needed to use a password manually. Passwords help to secure our database and are essential for security. Over time, it is a good practice to change the password frequently.
In this section, we will go through setting and changing the password for the admin user.
Summary
- Retrieve the operator password
- Rotate the operator password
- Set a new password
- …for the operator
- …for another user
Retrieve the operator password
The operator’s password can be retrieved by running the get-password action on the Charmed PostgreSQL VM application:
juju run postgresql/leader get-password
Running the command should output:
unit-postgresql-0:
UnitId: postgresql/0
id: "14"
results:
operator-password: eItxBiOYeMf7seSv
status: completed
timing:
completed: 2023-03-20 09:17:51 +0000 UTC
enqueued: 2023-03-20 09:17:49 +0000 UTC
started: 2023-03-20 09:17:50 +0000 UTC
Rotate the operator password
You can change the operator’s password to a new random password by entering:
juju run postgresql/leader set-password
Running the command should output:
unit-postgresql-0:
UnitId: postgresql/0
id: "16"
results:
operator-password: npGdNGNGVtu7SO50
status: completed
timing:
completed: 2023-03-20 09:18:11 +0000 UTC
enqueued: 2023-03-20 09:18:08 +0000 UTC
started: 2023-03-20 09:18:10 +0000 UTC
The status: completed element in the output above indicates that the password has been successfully updated. The new password should be different from the previous password.
Set a new password
You can set a specific password for any user by running the set-password juju action on the leader unit.
…for the operator user
To set a manual password for the operator/admin user, run the following command:
juju run postgresql/leader set-password password=<password>
where <password> is your password of choice.
Example output:
unit-postgresql-0:
UnitId: postgresql/0
id: "18"
results:
operator-password: my-password
status: completed
timing:
completed: 2023-03-20 09:20:06 +0000 UTC
enqueued: 2023-03-20 09:20:04 +0000 UTC
started: 2023-03-20 09:20:05 +0000 UTC
…for another user
To set a manual password for another user, run the following command:
juju run postgresql/leader set-password username=my-user password=my-password
Read more about internal operator users here.
Next step: 5. Integrate with other applications