Horton

Re: Possibility to disable `ALTER SYSTEM`

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se>

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From: Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se>
To: Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres@jeltef.nl>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, Joel Jacobson <joel@compiler.org>, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele.bartolini@enterprisedb.com>, Magnus Hagander <magnus.hagander@redpill-linpro.com>, Maciek Sakrejda <m.sakrejda@gmail.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Date: 2024-03-19T17:56:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. Add allow_alter_system GUC.

  2. Rename COMPAT_OPTIONS_CLIENT to COMPAT_OPTIONS_OTHER.

  3. Remove support for version-0 calling conventions.

> On 19 Mar 2024, at 17:53, Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres@jeltef.nl> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 19 Mar 2024 at 17:05, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> I've said this repeatedly: it's not enough.  The only reason we need
>> any feature whatsoever is that somebody doesn't trust their database
>> superusers to not try to modify the configuration.
> 
> And as everyone else on this thread has said: It is enough. Because
> the point is not security, the point is hinting to a superuser that a
> workflow they know from other systems (or an ALTER SYSTEM command they
> copied from the internet) is not the intended way to modify their
> server configuration on the system they are currently working on.

Well.  Protection against superusers randomly copying ALTER SYSTEM commands
from the internet actually does turn this into a security feature =)

--
Daniel Gustafsson