[Answered] How do you configure password encryption in the postgresql.conf file?

Answer

PostgreSQL provides various settings in its configuration file postgresql.conf to manage database behavior. One important aspect of database security is password encryption. The password_encryption parameter in the postgresql.conf file determines how passwords are encrypted when they are stored in the system catalogs.

Configuring Password Encryption

To configure password encryption, locate your postgresql.conf file (usually found in the data directory of your PostgreSQL installation) and adjust the password_encryption setting. Here's a brief overview of how this can be done:

Open the postgresql.conf file:

vim /path/to/your/postgresql/data/directory/postgresql.conf

Find the password_encryption line or add it if it doesn't exist: In versions prior to PostgreSQL 10, you can set this parameter to on or off, which controls whether passwords are stored as MD5 hashes (on) or in plain text (off). From PostgreSQL 10 onwards, this parameter accepts different methods like scram-sha-256 which offers better security than MD5.
```
# For PostgreSQL 10 and above
password_encryption = 'scram-sha-256'  # Recommended method
```
Save the changes and close the file.
Reload the PostgreSQL configuration to apply changes: You can reload the configuration without restarting the server by using the following SQL command:
```
SELECT pg_reload_conf();
```

Applying Changes

After changing the password_encryption parameter, only new passwords or updated passwords will use the new encryption method. Existing passwords are not automatically re-encrypted. To update existing passwords, users should change their passwords after the modification of this setting.

Verifying Your Settings

To ensure your setting has been applied, you can check the current value of password_encryption in the database with:

SHOW password_encryption;

This setup enhances the security of your PostgreSQL installation by ensuring that passwords are not stored in plain text and are protected against various types of attacks.