Why doesn't authentication with PG pass with a password?

Question

PostgreSQL

Here is pg_hba.conf:

The connection works like this:
sudo -u postgres psql
As you can see from the config, I added password authentication for the postgres user. Pg restarted (sudo systemctl restart postgresql). Further, using the login method above, I performed: I connect like this: and I get:
ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'postgres';
psql -U postgres -W -h 127.0.0.1 -d postgres

psql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres"

And a day ago it worked (before rebooting the virtual machine - some kind of XenCenter). Although I may have done something differently, but it seems not. some kind of mystic