Postgres SSL Connection Error - no pg_hba.conf entry

When deploying your application, you might encounter the following error:

PostgresError: no pg_hba.conf entry for host "10.192.10.12", user "flightcontrol", database "flightcontrol", SSL encryption

This error typically occurs with PostgreSQL 16+ which enforces SSL connections by default. The error indicates that your application is attempting to connect to PostgreSQL without proper SSL configuration.

Resolution

You have two options to resolve this issue:

Option 1: Configure SSL Mode in Your Application

Update your PostgreSQL connection configuration to allow unverified SSL connections. Add the sslmode parameter to your connection string or configuration:

// Example with connection string
const connectionString = "postgresql://user:password@host:5432/database?sslmode=prefer"
 
// Example with connection object
const config = {
  host: "your-host",
  user: "your-user",
  database: "your-database",
  ssl: {
    rejectUnauthorized: false, // For development only
  },
}

Option 2: Implement Full SSL Verification

For enhanced security in production environments, you can implement full SSL verification. Follow these steps:

Download the SSL certificate from your PostgreSQL server
Configure your application to use the certificate

For AWS RDS PostgreSQL instances, follow the AWS documentation for SSL certificate rotation.

Example configuration with proper SSL verification:

const fs = require("fs")
 
const config = {
  host: "your-host",
  user: "your-user",
  database: "your-database",
  ssl: {
    ca: fs.readFileSync("/path/to/server-ca.pem").toString(),
    rejectUnauthorized: true,
  },
}

Security Considerations

For production environments, use proper SSL verification
Never set rejectUnauthorized: false in production as it makes your connection vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks
Keep your PostgreSQL client libraries up to date

Additional Resources

Contacting Support Changing Nixpacks Version