Postgres authentication fails upon startup

[tonycoculuzzi]

I've set the Postgres environment variables for user access, but outline seems to error out while trying to connect to the database. The POSTGRES_USER and POSTGRES_PASS environment vars match the DB_URL properties

Anyone know why this might be happening?

This is the error I'm getting:

postgres_1      | 2022-03-20 02:36:20.492 UTC [32] FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "outlinepg"
postgres_1      | 2022-03-20 02:36:20.492 UTC [32] DETAIL:  Role "outlinepg" does not exist.
postgres_1      |       Connection matched pg_hba.conf line 100: "host all all all scram-sha-256"
outline_1       | /opt/outline/node_modules/sequelize/lib/dialects/postgres/connection-manager.js:186
outline_1       |                 reject(new sequelizeErrors.ConnectionError(err));
outline_1       |                        ^
outline_1       |
outline_1       | ConnectionError [SequelizeConnectionError]: password authentication failed for user "outlinepg"
outline_1       |     at Client._connectionCallback (/opt/outline/node_modules/sequelize/lib/dialects/postgres/connection-manager.js:186:24)
outline_1       |     at Client._handleErrorWhileConnecting (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg/lib/client.js:305:19)
outline_1       |     at Client._handleErrorMessage (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg/lib/client.js:325:19)
outline_1       |     at Connection.emit (node:events:520:28)
outline_1       |     at Connection.emit (node:domain:475:12)
outline_1       |     at /opt/outline/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:115:12
outline_1       |     at Parser.parse (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:40:17)
outline_1       |     at Socket.<anonymous> (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/index.js:10:42)
outline_1       |     at Socket.emit (node:events:520:28)
outline_1       |     at Socket.emit (node:domain:475:12)
outline_1       |     at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:315:12)
outline_1       |     at readableAddChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:289:9)
outline_1       |     at Socket.Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:228:10)
outline_1       |     at TCP.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:190:23) {
outline_1       |   parent: error: password authentication failed for user "outlinepg"
outline_1       |       at Parser.parseErrorMessage (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:278:15)
outline_1       |       at Parser.handlePacket (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:126:29)
outline_1       |       at Parser.parse (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:39:38)
outline_1       |       at Socket.<anonymous> (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/index.js:10:42)
outline_1       |       at Socket.emit (node:events:520:28)
outline_1       |       at Socket.emit (node:domain:475:12)
outline_1       |       at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:315:12)
outline_1       |       at readableAddChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:289:9)
outline_1       |       at Socket.Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:228:10)
outline_1       |       at TCP.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:190:23) {
outline_1       |     length: 105,
outline_1       |     severity: 'FATAL',
outline_1       |     code: '28P01',
outline_1       |     detail: undefined,
outline_1       |     hint: undefined,
outline_1       |     position: undefined,
outline_1       |     internalPosition: undefined,
outline_1       |     internalQuery: undefined,
outline_1       |     where: undefined,
outline_1       |     schema: undefined,
outline_1       |     table: undefined,
outline_1       |     column: undefined,
outline_1       |     dataType: undefined,
outline_1       |     constraint: undefined,
outline_1       |     file: 'auth.c',
outline_1       |     line: '335',
outline_1       |     routine: 'auth_failed'
outline_1       |   },
outline_1       |   original: error: password authentication failed for user "outlinepg"
outline_1       |       at Parser.parseErrorMessage (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:278:15)
outline_1       |       at Parser.handlePacket (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:126:29)
outline_1       |       at Parser.parse (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/parser.js:39:38)
outline_1       |       at Socket.<anonymous> (/opt/outline/node_modules/pg-protocol/dist/index.js:10:42)
outline_1       |       at Socket.emit (node:events:520:28)
outline_1       |       at Socket.emit (node:domain:475:12)
outline_1       |       at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:315:12)
outline_1       |       at readableAddChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:289:9)
outline_1       |       at Socket.Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:228:10)
outline_1       |       at TCP.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:190:23) {
outline_1       |     length: 105,
outline_1       |     severity: 'FATAL',
outline_1       |     code: '28P01',
outline_1       |     detail: undefined,
outline_1       |     hint: undefined,
outline_1       |     position: undefined,
outline_1       |     internalPosition: undefined,
outline_1       |     internalQuery: undefined,
outline_1       |     where: undefined,
outline_1       |     schema: undefined,
outline_1       |     table: undefined,
outline_1       |     column: undefined,
outline_1       |     dataType: undefined,
outline_1       |     constraint: undefined,
outline_1       |     file: 'auth.c',
outline_1       |     line: '335',
outline_1       |     routine: 'auth_failed'
outline_1       |   }
outline_1       | }
outline_1       | error Command failed with exit code 1.
outline_1       | info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
outline--docker-compose_outline_1 exited with code 1

[almereyda]

Since you are using the Docker version of the Outline setup, can you confirm that the Postgres container has been successfully initialised with the desired user/password combination and database?

One way to check could be by logging in to the database container directly:

docker-compose exec postgres sh -c 'psql postgres://${POSTGRES_USER}:${POSTGRES_PASS}@localhost:5432/${POSTGRES_DB}'

[tonycoculuzzi]

When I run the first command to initialize, I get a Sequelize/Yarn error:

yarn run v1.22.17
$ /opt/outline/node_modules/.bin/sequelize db:create --env=production-ssl-disabled

Sequelize CLI [Node: 16.14.0, CLI: 6.3.0, ORM: 6.9.0]

Loaded configuration file "server/config/database.json".
Using environment "production-ssl-disabled".

ERROR: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN postgress

error Command failed with exit code 1.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
ERROR: 1

[almereyda]

This is interesting, because in your original posting above, the connection between both containers worked, but the credentials were wrong.

Could you try to remove all containers with docker-compose rm -sf, in case any instance of the outline container and others which we do not care about right now are lingering around, and then only start the database container with docker-compose up -d postgres prior running the run --rm commands above?

As the postgres container is listed in the depends_on declaration of the Compose YAML, I don't see am imminent reason, why the connection does not work as expected.

Do you have other Docker (Compose) applications running on that host?

---

err. At some point you have configured the database host to be postgress (note the double s in your output). Maybe you have changed your YAML and environment files, and accidentally somehow introduced a typo somewhere?

[tonycoculuzzi]

Those typos were definitely breaking this, thank you for noticing that.

I fixed them, and now running the database initialization and migration commands work! Outline runs and I'm able to view the login page.

From here, using the Continue with Slack button leads to an "Unable to connect" page.

I've set my slack app up and the docker.env values match, but I'm not quite sure about the redirect URLs I've set at api.slack.com. The Outline server is meant to only be accessible from the network it's hosted on, so the redirect URL is currently http://localhost/auth/slack.callback but I feel like that's wrong.

[almereyda]

Ah, good! So we have a new error, and the Postgres related one is solved, nice. It seems you can mark your own answer as the answer (?), and we'd continue elsewhere debugging your edge case of a LAN Outline with Slack-authentication in a new thread for discoverability through others, what do you think?

[tonycoculuzzi]

Agreed, thanks a lot for your help! I'm still new to all this self-hosting stuff so I appreciate you taking the time to help me figure it out.

[andrewleech]

I recently had a very similar / identical issue myself. When using the docker postgres container I think it's best to supply the user/pass/dbname in the compose env variables to specify the database that should be created at initial run.

Once that's done though, you can't easily change the user/pass/dbname. In my case I changed some of these settings and couldn't log into postgres with the docker exec command suggested above.

I rm'd both the postgres container and the db volume (contents), then started again with the following docker-compose snippet:

  postgres:
    image: postgres
    expose:
      - "5432"
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=outline
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=<mypass>
      - POSTGRES_DB=outline
    volumes:
      - ./db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

after which the test command which failed previously, worked correctly:

docker-compose exec postgres sh -c 'psql postgres://outline:<mypass>@postgres:5432/outline'

This helped me: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42043642/3093392

[almereyda]

Yes, the POSTGRES_ environment variables are only parsed at container startup, if the database volume is still empty. When this occurs, the database is initialised with the variables as defined.

Changing the variables later will not have an effect on subsequent database containers, since they will be stored in the database volume already. This is why the values of the changed variables would not help to authenticate against a prefilled database. Deleting the entire database volume then clears all previous data, and allows to start from scratch.