public inbox for [email protected]  

help / color / mirror / Atom feed

From: Tom Lane <[email protected]>
To: Thomas Hallgren <[email protected]>
Cc: Kris Jurka <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: [Pljava-dev] Should creating a new base type require superuser status?
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:42:41 -0400
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>

Thomas Hallgren <[email protected]> writes:
> Tom, could you please elaborate where you see a security hole?

The problem that we've seen in the past shows up when the user lies in
the CREATE TYPE command, specifying type representation properties that
are different from what the underlying functions expect.  In particular,
if it's possible to pass a pass-by-value integer to a function
that's expecting a pass-by-reference datum, you can misuse the function
to access backend memory.

I gather from looking at the example that Kris referenced that there's
some interface code in between the SQL function call and the user's Java
code, and that that interface code is itself looking at the declared
properties of the SQL type to decide what to do.  So to the extent that
that code is (a) bulletproof against inconsistencies and (b) not
subvertible by the PL/Java user, it might be that there's no hole in
practice.  But assumption (b) seems pretty fragile to me.

			regards, tom lane

view thread (21+ messages)  latest in thread

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
  Subject: Re: Re: [Pljava-dev] Should creating a new base type require superuser status?
  In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox