Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Alvaro Herrera
Subject Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters
Date
Msg-id 20130805195301.GC27382@eldon.alvh.no-ip.org
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
Responses Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters  (Rodrigo Gonzalez <rjgonzale.lists@gmail.com>)
Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters  (Stefan Kaltenbrunner <stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc>)
Re: Disabling ALTER SYSTEM SET WAS: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters  (Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>)
List pgsql-hackers
Tom Lane escribió:

> What Josh seems to be concerned with in this thread is the question of
> whether we should support an installation *policy decision* not to allow
> ALTER SYSTEM SET.  Not because a particular set of parameters is broken,
> but just because somebody is afraid the DBA might break things.  TBH
> I'm not sure I buy that, at least not as long as ALTER SYSTEM is a
> superuser feature.  There is nothing in Postgres that denies permissions
> to superusers, and this doesn't seem like a very good place to start.

Someone made an argument about this on IRC: GUI tool users are going to
want to use ALTER SYSTEM through point-and-click, and if all we offer is
superuser-level access to the feature, we're going to end up with a lot
of people running with superuser privileges just so that they are able
to tweak inconsequential settings.  This seems dangerous.

The other issue is that currently you can only edit a server's config if
you are logged in to it.  If we permit SQL-level access to that, and
somebody who doesn't have access to edit the files blocks themselves
out, there is no way for them to get a working system *at all*.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services



pgsql-hackers by date:

Previous
From: Alvaro Herrera
Date:
Subject: Re: Autovacuum different in 9.2.4?
Next
From: Jeff Janes
Date:
Subject: Re: Moving 'hot' pages from buffer pool to heap