[pgpool-general: 3097] pg_md5 issue

[John Scalia]

Hi all,

I was trying to document my procedure for setting up pgpool for my QA folks when I stumbled across an issue with pg_md5.

If I issue: /usr/bin/pg_md5 --md5auth <password> where <password> is the user's actual password, pg_md5 writes an entry to the pool_passwd file like:

postgres:md5a004267ea750b79e526724833f42133

but if I issue the command as /usr/bin/pg_md5 <password> what gets spit out to terminal is:

953674ba4731447e6a7ddaf32b308679

Now, I know md5 can have multiple strings evaluate to the same answer, but the value written into the pool_passwd file does NOT work, whereas, if I edit the pool_passwd file and 
write the second string ending in 679 to it, then it does work. I noticed this when I copied and pasted the entry into the /etc/pgpool-II/pcp.conf file. Attempting to use any pcp_* 
command fails authentication with the first string, but works when the second string is in the file.

I'm using centO/S 6.5 and V.3.3.3-4 of pgpool if that makes a difference, but I'd like to know why it works differently in these cases with one being OK to use, and the other 
failing miserably.
--
Jay