# Is it possible to login into the postgres database inside the docker image?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [November 2, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167 "2015-11-02T00:48:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@badr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/badr)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/1 "2015-11-02T00:48:52Z")
Hello,
I need to integrate a product on my discourse by adding some tables to the discourse db in postgres. Where can I find the username and password for the PostGres DB Discourse is using.
I also wanted to ask if I change the postgres password like its suggested here:
```
./launcher enter app
su - postgres
psql
ALTER ROLE postgres WITH PASSWORD 'your-new-password';
```
will that break discourse or will discourse work with that new password…
---
### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/2 "2015-11-02T01:43:28Z")
Any reason not to make yourself a new service account w different name & password?
---
### Author:  [@badr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/badr)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2015, 7:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/3 "2015-11-02T07:28:15Z")
Because in order to do that I need to log into Postgres and I don’t know the account information Discourse uses for that.
---
### Author:  [@tgxworld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tgxworld)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2015, 8:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/4 "2015-11-02T08:04:17Z")
If you’re following the standard Docker install and did not change the postgres template, try
```plaintext
./launcher enter app
su postgres -c "psql discourse"
```
> [@badr](#):
>
> Where can I find the username and password for the PostGres DB Discourse is using.
>
---
### Author:  [@badr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/badr)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/5 "2015-11-14T19:16:53Z")
THANKS!
This is exactly what I was looking for…
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2016, 8:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/6 "2016-07-13T08:14:39Z")
Amplifying on this, some basic postgres commands once you have the postgres command line in the container:
list all databases
`\l`
select a database
`\c dbname`
list tables in the current database
`\dt`
list columns in the users table
`\d+ users`
number of rows in the users table
`select count(*) from users;`
display value of configuration variables
`show shared_buffers;`
exit from the postgres console
`\q`
If you know SQL I am sure you can take it from here 😉 note that all SQL **must** terminate with semicolon `;`
Also, [some queries to identify largest tables](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Disk_Usage).
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2023, 4:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-it-possible-to-login-into-the-postgres-database-inside-the-docker-image/35167/10 "2023-01-26T04:29:27Z")
> [@tgxworld](#):
>
> ```plaintext
> ./launcher enter app
> su postgres -c "psql discourse"
>
> ```
Do we have updated instructions here? When I try that now I get
```plaintext
root@endoffice-b:/var/discourse# su postgres -c "psql discourse"
No passwd entry for user 'postgres'
```
ah wait, rebooting helped and this worked:
```plaintext
root@endoffice-b:/var/discourse# ./launcher enter app
x86_64 arch detected.
WARNING: containers/app.yml file is world-readable. You can secure this file by running: chmod o-rwx containers/app.yml
root@endoffice-b-app:/var/www/discourse# su postgres -c 'psql discourse'
psql (13.7 (Debian 13.7-1.pgdg110+1))
Type "help" for help.
```
Basically I needed to start the Docker container:
`./launcher start app`