Message-ID: <67cb04a8.170a0220.4ffef.a81e@mx.google.com>
Sender: Michael Banck <mbanck@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2025 15:37:27 +0100
From: Michael Banck <mbanck@gmx.net>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Cc: Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres@jeltef.nl>,
	PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] New predefined role pg_manage_extensions
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Hi,

On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 09:17:46AM -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> Why wouldn't the cloud provider just change add 'trusted = true' to
> the relevant control files instead of doing this?

That would be possible, but  maybe the cloud provider is using
distribution packages and does not want to muck around in the file
system (as is usually frowned upon), or, maybe more likely, is using
container images based on (what I've seen most of them are) the Debian
packages and cannot (or does not want to anyway) muck around in the file
system easily.

Also, I think there is case to be made that a cloud provider (or site
admin) would like to delegate the decision whether users with CREATE
rights on a particular database are allowed to install some extensions
or not. Or rather, assign somebody they believe would make the right
call to do that, by granting pg_manage_extensions.

On the other hand, maybe trusted should be part of the catalog and not
(just) the extension control file, so that somebody with appropriate
permissions (like the cloud provider during instance bootstrap) could do
"ALTER EXTENSION foo (SET trusted|TRUSTED);" or whatever. ISTR that I
reviewed the discussion around trusted back then and did not see that
possiblity discussed at all, but I might be misremembering, it's been a
while.


Michael