Cannot boot Chainlink: opening db: failed to open db:

Question

When I "chainlink node start", I get the error:

"Cannot boot Chainlink: opening db: failed to open db: failed to connect to host=/private/tmp user=myname database=: server error (FATAL: unrecognized configuration parameter "?application_name" (SQLSTATE 42704))"

I follow this youtube video: https://youtu.be/ZB3GLtQvgME?t=2017 I have a .env but it is not reading from there. No matter what I change on DATABASE_URL, I get the same error.

ETH_URL=wss://kovan.infura.io/ws/v3/ 
FEATURE_EXTERNAL_INITIATORS=true 
LOG_LEVEL=debug 
ETH_CHAIN_ID=42 
MIN_OUTGOING_CONFIRMATIONS=2 
LINK_CONTRACT_ADDRESS= 
CHAINLINK_TLS_PORT=0 
SECURE_COOKIES=false 
ALLOW_ORIGINS=* 
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost:5432/kovan_demo?sslmode=disable 
DATABASE_TIMEOUT=0 
FEATURE_FLUX_MONITOR=true 
MINIMUM_CONTRACT_PAYMENT=0 
CHAINLINK_DEV=true

Answer 1

The database parameters are set via environment variable

Answer 2

As Richard said, you need to set DATABASE_URL as an environment variable. For some reason, the chainlink client cannot read file .env and set the environment variable as expected.

The way how I solve the problem is to set DATABASE_URL as an environment variable explicitly by command:

export DATABASE_URL=postgresql://<usrname>:<passswd>@localhost:5432/chainlink_node?sslmode=disable

You can find all configurations of Chainlink node here.

Hope it helps.

Answer 3

The format to connect to the database is the following:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://$USERNAME:$PASSWORD@$SERVER:$PORT/$DATABASE

I always follow this steps to create the database:

sudo -u postgres psql
create database $DATABASE;
create user $USERNAME with encrypted password '$PASSWORD';
grant all privileges on database $DATABASE to $USERNAME;

Just change the variables

sudo -u postgres psql
create database chainlink;
create user username with encrypted password 'pass';
grant all privileges on database chainlink to username;

And then:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://username:pass@localhost:5432/chainlink?sslmode=disable

I don't recommend at all this credentials for production.