Tunnel to Production PostgreSQL Database

| databases | devops |

As any responsible sys admin, I only allow local connections to my production database server. This means that if I need to access my DB from my local machine I would most likely need to use an SSH tunnel in order to connect.

For some reason, pgadmin3 no longer seems happy on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and I am not able to make an SSH tunnel. In addition, it is a bit annoying that you are not able to save passwords with an SSH tunnel by default in pgadmin3, especially since my password is a long and random 50 character string.

The solution is pretty simple using the -L SSH flag.

ssh -L 15432:localhost:5432 $USER@$SERVER

This command creates a tunnel on my  production server, and forwards port 5432 (the default PostgreSQL port) to my local port 15432. This allows me to connect using pgadmin3 as if the database were running on my local machine.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Doing less, for her

My daughter will be born soon, and I’m reflecting on what that means for my OpenSource work.

via Carlos Becker February 1, 2026

The Browser’s Little White Lies

So I’m making a thing and I want it to be styled different if the link’s been visited. Rather than build something myself in JavaScript, I figure I’ll just hook into the browser’s mechanism for tracking if a link’s been visited (a sensible approach, if I d…

via Jim Nielsen’s Blog February 1, 2026

$29 million stolen from from Step Finance treasury wallets

The Solana-based defi portfolio tracker Step Finance lost 261,854 SOL (~$28.7 million) when a thief gained access to treasury and fee wallets. It's not yet clear how the attacker was able to steal the funds, although Step Finance…

via Web3 is Going Just Great February 1, 2026

Generated by openring