Re: conflict ? password authentication failed for user "postgres"

[Joseph <..hidden..>]

[snip]
>         
>         This worked as well, next in order to login I had to change
>         file: 
>         pg_hba.conf to:
>         local   all         all                               md5
>         # IPv4 local connections:
>         host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32        md5
>         
>         at this point I can login but I can not create "dataset" 
>         I think the password for "postgres" is getting encrypted where
>         as
>         originally it was set unencrypted.
> 
> 
> change the auth types back to trust for a moment.
> Then log in as postgres
> run the following command:
> ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD '[secret]';
> 
> Then change the auth types back to md5 (note that any change to the
> pg_hba.conf requires restarting PostgreSQL.
>  
> Best Wishes, 
> Chris Travers
> 
How do I login as postgres, I've tried the following:

# su postgres
..hidden.. /etc/apache2 $ ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD '[secret]';
bash: ALTER: command not found

$ psql -U postgres
psql: FATAL:  database "postgres" does not exist

-- 
#Joseph