How to connect to postgres with two terminals?

Question

I have a terminal I can connect to postgres

psql testdb

but when I open a new tab or a new terminal and tried to connect to psql an error is returned

This error returns

psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
Is the server running locally and accepting
connections on Unix domain socket "/var/pgsql_socket/.s.PGSQL.5433"?

I tried creating another user and using another port

createuser testing_multiple

psql -p 5433

the same error occurs.

There might be two different psql binaries (IOS?) Try to locate the psql binary (in both terminals) type which psql — wildplasser
– wildplasser, Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 19:11
Maybe you are on two different machines? (or VMs) or in a chroot cage ... — wildplasser
– wildplasser, Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 19:15
umm, I am using virtualenv but even when I tried to workon the same virtualenv folder the new tab will still return the error — user87852
– user87852, Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 19:16
Why do you use a different portnumber (from the default 5432), do you have more than one instance of postgres installed and running? — wildplasser
– wildplasser, Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 19:17

Craig Ringer · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-06 00:58:29Z

1

Your issue is probably that you're working within virtualenv. It isn't a chroot, but it sets a bunch of environment variables to fake the local environment, quite likely including the PATH and other settings.

Most likely the unix socket is at a different location to that compiled into the psql binary you're using. I'd say your PostgreSQL server socket is probably actually at /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5433, in which case export PGHOST=/tmp/ will work. Since you can connect from within the virtualenv terminal you can check though - within psql, run SHOW unix_socket_directories;. The location shown there is what you can give in PGHOST to connect to that PostgreSQL server.

The reason that export PGHOST=localhost works is that you are forcing psql (and other clients that use libpq) to connect over TCP/IP, instead of the default unix socket connection.

answered Oct 6, 2014 at 0:58

Craig Ringer

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