Re: Have an encrypted pgpass file - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: Have an encrypted pgpass file
Date
Msg-id 5743.1531950724@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Have an encrypted pgpass file  (Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com>)
Responses Re: Have an encrypted pgpass file  (Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com>)
Re: Have an encrypted pgpass file  (Jeff Janes <jeff.janes@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> writes:
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 5:46 AM, Marco van Eck <marco.vaneck@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Since .pgpass files contain plain-text passwords, I searched for an
>> alternative.
>> In the attached patch I've added the possibility to run a command to produce
>> the content of the pgpass file, in exactly the same format.

> ... Here you side step those questions completely and make that the end
> user's problem.   I like it.

... but doesn't this just encourage people to build hacks that aren't
really any more secure than the unreadable-file approach?  In fact,
I'm afraid this would be an attractive nuisance, in that people would
build one-off hacks that get no security vetting and don't really work.

I'd like to see a concrete example of a use-case that really does add
security; preferably one short and useful enough to put into the docs
so that people might copy-and-paste it rather than rolling their own.
It seems possible that something of the sort could be built atop
ssh-agent or gpg-agent, for instance.

            regards, tom lane


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