Re: How to create read-only view on 9.3 - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Andrew Dunstan
Subject Re: How to create read-only view on 9.3
Date
Msg-id 520A5D69.8030305@dunslane.net
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: How to create read-only view on 9.3  (Merlin Moncure <mmoncure@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: How to create read-only view on 9.3  (Hannu Krosing <hannu@2ndQuadrant.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
On 08/13/2013 12:09 PM, Merlin Moncure wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Hannu Krosing <hannu@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>> On 08/13/2013 03:25 PM, Merlin Moncure wrote:
>>> I chatted about this on IRC for a bit.  Apparently, updatability of
>>> views is a mandatory feature in the sql standard and by relying on the
>>> read-only-ness you were relying on non-standard behavior essentially.
>>> I admit this is a pretty big pain (and I'm a real stickler for
>>> backwards compatibility) but it's pretty hard to argue with the
>>> standard.   Workarounds are to revoke various privileges.
>> Perhaps pg_dump from 9.3 should add REVOKE ALL ...; GRANT SELECT ...;
>> when dumping views from older postgreSQL versions ?
> I thought so initially until I learned that views are expressly
> read-write per the standard; we're not changing behavior but
> implementing required functionality.  So (at the least) I don't think
> it's fair to expect users who don't care about this point to have to
> go re-GRANT the appropriate privs -- so if you did that I think it
> would have to be an optional switch to pg_dump.  That said, it's
> pretty much a given this is going to burn some people and given the
> potential security considerations maybe some action is warranted.
> Personally, I'd be satisfied with a dump time warning though or
> perhaps a strongly worded note in the documentation?
>
>


In any case, using permissions is a somewhat leaky bandaid, since 
superusers have overriding access privileges anyway. A better way to do 
what the OP wants might be to have a view trigger that raises an exception.

cheers

andrew





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