To use the PostgreSQL exporter, you need to connect to the database with superuser (postgres) privileges, or with an user that has been granted enough permissions. The recommended way to do this, is to create a `prometheus` user with no password, and then connect using UNIX domain sockets. To do that, set this connection string in /etc/default/prometheus-postgres-exporter: DATA_SOURCE_NAME='user=prometheus host=/run/postgresql dbname=postgres' And use psql (sudo -u postgres psql) to execute these SQL commands to create the user: CREATE USER prometheus; ALTER USER prometheus SET SEARCH_PATH TO prometheus,pg_catalog; CREATE SCHEMA prometheus AUTHORIZATION prometheus; CREATE FUNCTION prometheus.f_select_pg_stat_activity() RETURNS setof pg_catalog.pg_stat_activity LANGUAGE sql SECURITY DEFINER AS $$ SELECT * from pg_catalog.pg_stat_activity; $$; CREATE FUNCTION prometheus.f_select_pg_stat_replication() RETURNS setof pg_catalog.pg_stat_replication LANGUAGE sql SECURITY DEFINER AS $$ SELECT * from pg_catalog.pg_stat_replication; $$; CREATE VIEW prometheus.pg_stat_replication AS SELECT * FROM prometheus.f_select_pg_stat_replication(); CREATE VIEW prometheus.pg_stat_activity AS SELECT * FROM prometheus.f_select_pg_stat_activity(); GRANT SELECT ON prometheus.pg_stat_replication TO prometheus; GRANT SELECT ON prometheus.pg_stat_activity TO prometheus;