Re: ALTER ROLE/DATABASE RESET ALL versus security

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> > > Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> > > > Tom Lane wrote:
> > > >> It looks to me like the code in AlterSetting() will allow an ordinary
> > > >> user to blow away all settings for himself.  Even those that are for
> > > >> SUSET variables and were presumably set for him by a superuser.  Isn't
> > > >> this a security hole?  I would expect that an unprivileged user should
> > > >> not be able to change such settings, not even to the extent of
> > > >> reverting to the installation-wide default.
> > > 
> > > > Yes, it is, but this is not a new hole.  This works just fine in 8.4
> > > > too:
> > > 
> > > So I'd argue for changing it in 8.4 too.
> > 
> > Understood.  I'm starting to look at what this requires.
> 
> Any progress on this?

I have come up with the attached patch.  I haven't tested it fully yet,
and I need to backport it.  The gist of it is: we can't simply remove
the pg_db_role_setting tuple, we need to ask GUC to reset the settings
array, for which it checks superuser-ness on each setting.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support