Re: PG_PWD and PG_PASSWORD Security - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Peter Eisentraut
Subject Re: PG_PWD and PG_PASSWORD Security
Date
Msg-id Pine.LNX.4.30.0103012002540.760-100000@peter.localdomain
Whole thread Raw
In response to PG_PWD and PG_PASSWORD Security  ("Anthony Metzidis" <metzidis@mednet.ucla.edu>)
List pgsql-general
Anthony Metzidis writes:

> Is there any way to keep postgres from saving the passwords in plain
> text?

No.

> This seems to be a huge security hole.

No, because the directory that contains these files shouldn't be world
readable.  The issue has been noted though, but no one has implemented a
better solution yet.

> I thought that passwords were to be saved in PG_SHADOW. What is
> PG_SHADOW for anyway?

Pg_shadow is the system catalog table that stores the user information,
such as user name and password.  The pg_pwd file is a plain text dump of
pg_shadow, which is necessary because at the time the password is needed
(during the connection attempt), the system can't read the pg_shadow table
yet (because it's not connected yet, sort of).

--
Peter Eisentraut      peter_e@gmx.net       http://yi.org/peter-e/


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