Django fe_sendauth: no password supplied error, unable to connect to postgres database

Question

I am trying to provision a server with a django applciation with postgresql as its backend. After installing the required packages, database and environment when I try to run migrations, I get the following error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 213, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 189, in connect
    self.connection = self.get_new_connection(conn_params)
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/postgresql/base.py", line 176, in get_new_connection
    connection = Database.connect(**conn_params)
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/psycopg2/__init__.py", line 130, in connect
    conn = _connect(dsn, connection_factory=connection_factory, **kwasync)
psycopg2.OperationalError: fe_sendauth: no password supplied


The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 22, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 363, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
 ====
 ommitting some lines
 ====
    connection = Database.connect(**conn_params)
  File "/var/envs/traveldbapi/lib/python3.4/site-packages/psycopg2/__init__.py", line 130, in connect
    conn = _connect(dsn, connection_factory=connection_factory, **kwasync)
django.db.utils.OperationalError: fe_sendauth: no password supplied

I confirmed that the relevant DATABASE setting required for django are present:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'NAME': DATABASE_NAME,
        'USER': DATABASE_USER,
        'password': DATABASE_PASSWORD
    }
}

I am not sure why this error is happening because this is the same setup I use on my local machine and it works. To confirm that there aren't any issues with my pg_hba.conf I started from a fresh installation. The config hasn't been modified in any way and the application user has the required privileges on the application database.

Answer 1

The settings must be in uppercase - try changing it to 'PASSWORD'

Answer 2

The key name 'password' should be in uppercase 'PASSWORD'. Also instead of defining password as global variable DATABASE_PASSWORD, you can use .bashrc file to save secure information and can fetch in settings.py like os.environ['DATABASE_PASSWORD']