Re: Contrib Schemas

John,

> Would it be reasonable for there to be a way for the super user to
> grant access to load "approved" modules and/or C language functions?

I can't see a way to do this except individually, in which case the 
superuser might as well load the functions.   We *have* to be restrictive 
about this because a C function can do anything, including overwriting 
whatever parts of the filesystem "postgres" has access to.  Look over our 
patch releases for the last 2 years and you'll see a host of patches 
designed specifically to prevent regular users from gaining access to 
superuser priveleges.  

What you want isn't impossible, but it would be a lot of work and testing 
to engineer such a mechanism and keep PostgreSQL's "most secure" status.  
So far, everyone has found it easier to work around the issue, especially 
since for most sites backup/restore is done by the superuser anyway.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco