auth_delay

auth_delay : pause briefly before reporting authentication failure

Overview

ID	Extension	Package	Version	Category	License	Language
7970	auth_delay	auth_delay	`-`	SEC	PostgreSQL	C

Attribute	Has Binary	Has Library	Need Load	Has DDL	Relocatable	Trusted
--sL---	No	Yes	Yes	No	no	no

Relationships
See Also	pg_auth_mon credcheck login_hook passwordcheck passwordcheck_cracklib pgaudit set_user pg_permissions

PG18	PG17	PG16	PG15	PG14
-	-	-	-	-

This is a built-in contrib extension ship with the PostgreSQL kernel

Config this extension to shared_preload_libraries:

shared_preload_libraries = 'auth_delay';

This extension does not need CREATE EXTENSION DDL command

auth_delay: Pause before reporting authentication failure

auth_delay pauses the server briefly before reporting authentication failures, making brute-force password attacks more difficult.

Add to postgresql.conf:

shared_preload_libraries = 'auth_delay'
auth_delay.milliseconds = '500'

Parameter	Default	Description
`auth_delay.milliseconds`	`0`	Milliseconds to wait before reporting auth failure

Must be loaded via shared_preload_libraries
Does not prevent denial-of-service attacks (waiting processes still hold connection slots)
No CREATE EXTENSION is required – this is a shared library module only

Last updated on 2026-03-12