Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 22:05:41 -0500
From: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
Cc: Adam Brightwell <adam.brightwell@crunchydatasolutions.com>,
 Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
 PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: CATUPDATE confusion?
Message-ID: <20150226030541.GG29780@tamriel.snowman.net>
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* Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net) wrote:
> On 2/25/15 3:39 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> >> I'd get rid of that whole check, not just replace rolcatupdate by rols=
uper.
> >=20
> > Err, wouldn't this make it possible to grant normal users the ability to
> > modify system catalogs?  I realize that they wouldn't have that
> > initially, but I'm not sure we want the superuser to be able to grant
> > that to non-superusers..
>=20
> Why not?  I thought we are trying to get rid of special superuser behavio=
r.

Agreed, but I'd also like to get rid of any reason, beyond emergency
cases, for people to modify the catalog directly.  There's a few places
which we aren't yet doing that, but I'd rather fix those cases than
encourage people to give out rights to modify them and end up making
things like:

"UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn =3D false where datname =3D 'xyz';"

an accepted interface.

> After all, superusers can also make the other user a superuser to bypass
> this issue.

Sure, but that gives us the option to write off whatever happens next as
not our fault.

	Thanks,

		Stephen

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