Re: [v9.1] Add security hook on initialization of instance - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Stephen Frost
Subject Re: [v9.1] Add security hook on initialization of instance
Date
Msg-id 20100709151917.GU21875@tamriel.snowman.net
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: [v9.1] Add security hook on initialization of instance  (Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: [v9.1] Add security hook on initialization of instance
List pgsql-hackers
* Robert Haas (robertmhaas@gmail.com) wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 10:52 AM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
> > Something else which has come up but is related is the ability to
> > support a "pam_tally"-like function in PG.  Basically, the ability to
> > lock users out if they've had too many failed login attempts.  I wonder
> > if we could add this hook (or maybe have more than one if necessary) in
> > a way to support a contrib module for that.
>
> Seems like the hard part would be figuring out where to store the
> bookkeeping information.

pam_tally does it in a flat file on-disk.  It's not perfect, but it
works.  It'd be good enough for me if there was a hook in the right
place that I could write the contrib module.

Of course, it'd be even nicer to have support for this in-core, since
it's a FISMA requirement and not everyone is going to like having to
install a contrib module to handle something like this.  Of course, so
is stuff like remembering old passwords, password aging, etc...  I do
really wish there was a way PAM could be used by applications
*independently* of the system auth (eg: /etc/passwd) to handle all of
this.  If anyone's aware of a way, I'm all ears..
Thanks,
    Stephen

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