How do you remote connect with PgAdmin 4 to a postgresql on a droplet?

Best choice for connecting PGAdmin to server is SSH-tunnel using Public key authentication (Identity file) for SSH connection. PGAdmin 4.4 supports ssh-tunnel out of the box. But there is a small issue with supported public key formats. By default newer versions of ssh-keygen generate key in RFC4716 format, but PGAdmin supports only PEM. So you need to add -m PEM option when generating your key.

Use

ssh-keygen -m PEM -t rsa -b 4096

More information here

The most secure way to do this is probably to configure an SSH tunnel. It will securely send traffic from the Droplet to your local machine without needing to expose the database publically.

Assuming you already have SSH set up, from your local machine run:

ssh -L 63333:localhost:5432 user@111.111.111.111

Let’s break that command down a bit:

• 63333 is the port you want to be able to access Postgresql on locally. It doesn’t need to be that number, it is just for example.
• 5432 is the port that Postgresql is running on the Droplet. That is the default port used.

Now when you set up PgAdmin, you can use localhost for the “Host” setting and 63333 for the port.

For more information on how SSH tunneling works, check out:

• How To Set Up SSH Tunneling on a VPS