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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2024 16:14:09 +0200
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Subject: Re: pgsql: Restrict accesses to non-system views and foreign tables
 during
To: Masahiko Sawada <msawada@postgresql.org>,
 pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org
References: <E1saxQr-002nFK-SJ@gemulon.postgresql.org>
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From: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
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On 05.08.24 15:07, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
> To address this, pg_dump now utilizes the newly introduced
> restrict_nonsystem_relation_kind GUC parameter to restrict the
> accesses to non-system views and foreign tables during the dump
> process. This new GUC parameter is added to back branches too, but
> these changes do not require cluster recreation.

This documentation of this new parameter is a bit hard to understand. 
The description in guc_tables.c is

"Sets relation kinds of non-system relation to restrict use"

which is hard to understand even knowing what this setting is supposed 
to do.

In config.sgml it says

+   This variable specifies relation kind to which access is restricted.
+   It contains a comma-separated list of relation kind.  Currently, the
+   supported relation kinds are <literal>view</literal> and
+   <literal>foreign-table</literal>.

This does not mention "system" or "non-system" at all.

Also, the phrase "to which access is restricted" can be interpreted in 
two opposite ways:

- access to those relations is prohibited
- access is limited to those relations

Also nothing anywhere clarifies what "restricted" means here, and the 
term introduces unnecessary ambiguity.

Can we come up with some more precise and easier-to-understand language?