Authentication error when connecting to Heroku PostgreSQL database

Question

I'm developing a Node.js application using PostgreSQL and hosting on Heroku. My problem is that I get an authentication error like so:

14:32:05 web.1     | { [error: no pg_hba.conf entry for host "193.40.244.196", user "username", database "database_name", SSL off] 14:32:05 web.1     |   length: 168, 14:32:05 web.1     |   name: 'error', 14:32:05 web.1     |   severity: 'FATAL', 14:32:05 web.1     |   code: '28000', 14:32:05 web.1     |   detail: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   hint: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   position: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   internalPosition: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   internalQuery: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   where: undefined, 14:32:05 web.1     |   file: 'auth.c', 14:32:05 web.1     |   line: '483', 14:32:05 web.1     |   routine: 'ClientAuthentication' } 

It might be an SSL problem, but it shouldn't be as mentioned here. SSL should be supported out of the box. So I'm stumped and can only ask what might cause this error?

I'm not sure if I have to maybe edit the pg_hba.conf on my system, but I can't even find it.

Answer 1

Solved it by setting PGSSLMODE (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/libpq-envars.html) on Heroku. It tells PostgreSQL to default to SSL.

$ heroku config:set PGSSLMODE=require 

Answer 2

node-postgres doesn't support SSL in it's javascript bindings, which you're using if you do:

var pg = require('pg'); 

To get SSL, you need to use the native binding by doing this:

var pg = require('pg').native; 

You don't need to use SSL when your app is running inside Heroku, you only need to use SSL to connect remotely (when your app is running locally).