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