Re: [PATCH] Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Why READ ONLY - Mailing list pgsql-patches

From Neil Conway
Subject Re: [PATCH] Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Why READ ONLY
Date
Msg-id 87ptf720lo.fsf@mailbox.samurai.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: [PATCH] Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Why READ ONLY transactions?  (Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>)
List pgsql-patches
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> I assume this patch is to control this way of breaking out of a
> read-only transaction:
> [...]
> This seems like a valuable feature, as others have mentioned.

Why is this feature valuable?

A "read only user" is still able to easily DOS the server, consume
arbitrary disk space[1], and prevent other users from accessing data
(using LOCK, for example). It has been a long-standing fact that
giving a user the ability to execute arbitrary SQL is a security hole;
if you plan to change that, ISTM that a lot more work is necessary.

-Neil

[1] Whether they are allowed to create temp tables or not: plenty of
other parts of the executor use temporary storage.


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