> At any rate, when I fire up http://localhost/sqlledger.admin.pl, login, and then try
> to "Create Dataset" under the user 'mike', my linux (mike) password, and connect to 'mydb',
> I get the following error:FATAL 1: IDENT authentication failed for user "mike".
> 
> I'm suspect my problems lie within pg_hba.conf, but whatever I do (thinking it is wide open)
> I continue to get the same error message.

You are correct this is a pg_hba.conf issue.  As evidenced by the IDENT 
error.  An easy way to test this kind of thing w/o having to fire up the 
application is do a 

psql -U mike -h localhost mydb

Which forces things to access things like your web application does.


> 
> Can anyone offer some guidance here?

Comment out the other lines and add this to pg_hba.conf ...

local      all                                          trust
host       all         127.0.0.1     255.255.255.255    trust     

It is not what I would leave for production or generally exposed machine, 
but it should be enough to allow you to test sql*ledger and see how you 
like it at which point you can read the finer points of pg_hba.conf 
options to set what is best for your needs.

-Derek