Horton

Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters

Claudio Freire <klaussfreire@gmail.com>

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From: Claudio Freire <klaussfreire@gmail.com>
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Cc: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>, Cédric Villemain <cedric@2ndquadrant.com>, PostgreSQL-Dev <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, Stefan Kaltenbrunner <stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc>, Dimitri Fontaine <dimitri@2ndquadrant.fr>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com>, Greg Stark <stark@mit.edu>, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@gmail.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>
Date: 2013-08-06T18:55:46Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>> I'd like to look at use cases, and let's see how ALTER SYSTEM SET
>> addresses or doesn't address these use cases.  I'd really like it if
>> some other folks also posted use cases they know of.
>>
>> (1) Making is easier for GUIs to manage PostgreSQL settings.
>
> One of the traps here is that while it makes it easier, it also could
> trap the user if they don't have the knowledge to fix a problem because
> would need to acquire the knowledge while they are trying to fix the
> problem, rather then while they are making the initial change.


I think the more serious problem here is not about knowledge
acquisition, but access to problem-fixing means. As was said some
posts ago, if a DBA has access to a superuser account but not to
server configuration files, he can lock himself out for good. No
amount of knowledge will avail him/her. That's bad.