Security Disclosure Recommendation: Rotate PostgreSQL Database Credentials

This guide is part of Railway's response to the security disclosure published on October 21, 2026.

If you run PostgreSQL on Railway, regenerate its password, redeploy every service that uses it, and confirm nothing is still connecting with the old credential.

If your PostgreSQL password or DATABASE_URL may have been exposed, rotate your credentials. The same steps work for scheduled rotation. This guide applies if your database uses the Railway PostgreSQL template. The fastest path is Regenerate in the Database View, which changes the password inside PostgreSQL and updates the service variables in one step.

If you suspect the credential isn't compromised and you need zero downtime, use the dual-role flow in Rotate credentials without downtime instead. If you suspect a leak, cutting off the old credential matters more than the short outage while your services redeploy. Regenerate first.

Before you rotate

Three checks tell you how exposed the credential is and what you must update afterwards.

Find every consumer. Open the PostgreSQL service's Variables tab. Services that use reference variables such as ${{ Postgres.DATABASE_URL }} pick up the new password on their next deploy. Services with a pasted connection string don't, so note them.
Check public access. Open the PostgreSQL service's Settings and find Networking. If Public Access is enabled, the credential is usable from anywhere on the internet through the TCP proxy until you rotate. Remove public access now if nothing outside the project needs it. A private database is only reachable over the project's private network.
List external consumers. Anything that uses DATABASE_PUBLIC_URL (local development, CI, BI tools, cron jobs on other hosts) needs the new value pasted in by hand.

Regenerate the password

Regenerate is the supported way to change a database password on Railway. It keeps the database and the variables in sync.

Open the PostgreSQL service and click the Database tab, then Config.
In the Connection section, click Regenerate next to the password. Railway changes the password inside PostgreSQL and updates POSTGRES_PASSWORD. In the template, PGPASSWORD, DATABASE_URL, and DATABASE_PUBLIC_URL reference it, so they change too. See Database View: Connection.
Railway restarts the database to apply the new password, so every open session drops, including any an attacker had open. Your services can't reconnect until you redeploy them in the next section. During an incident, that is the goal.

⚠️ Don't edit POSTGRES_PASSWORD or PGPASSWORD by hand, and don't run ALTER USER yourself. Each changes only one side and leaves the variable and the database out of sync. If that already happened, see how to recover.

Redeploy the services that use it

Containers read variables only at startup, so every service that uses the credential must be redeployed.

Redeploy every service that references the PostgreSQL variables. Regenerate redeploys only the database, so these services keep the old password until you do.
If a service has a pasted connection string, replace it with the reference ${{ Postgres.DATABASE_URL }} so the next rotation reaches it automatically, then deploy.
Optional: redeploy one service from the CLI with railway redeploy.
```
railway redeploy --service backend
```
Update external consumers with the new DATABASE_PUBLIC_URL.

A healthcheck that exercises the database fails a deploy that has the wrong credential, so you catch a bad value before it takes traffic. It won't flag a service you forgot to redeploy, because Railway only runs healthchecks at deploy time.

Verify the rotation

Confirm the new credential works and nothing is still connected with the old one.

Check each dependent service's deploy logs for a successful connection and no password authentication failed errors.
Open the Database tab and confirm the Data view loads tables. It uses the same variables.
Connect with the new credential using railway connect.
```
railway connect Postgres
```
List current sessions. The restart dropped every session from before the rotation, so a session you don't recognize connected with the new password. Find out where it got it.
```
SELECT pid, usename, client_addr, application_name, backend_start, state
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE datname = current_database();
```
If you find sessions you don't recognize, terminate them.
```
SELECT pg_terminate_backend(<pid>);
```

Look for misuse

A rotated password stops future access. These checks show whether the old credential was used.

Railway audit logs show who viewed or changed variables on the PostgreSQL service and when. Workspace admins can filter by project and event type. Retention depends on your plan.
The PostgreSQL service's deploy logs include failed logins. Use the log filter to search for authentication failed. PostgreSQL doesn't log successful connections or client addresses by default.
Inside the database, look for roles you didn't create with SELECT rolname FROM pg_roles;, for new extensions, and for unexpected row counts or recently modified rows.
If data was altered, preserve the evidence first, then restore from a backup or use point-in-time recovery.

If you have any other questions, contact Railway support at support@railway.com.