Thread: Visibility of objects in other schema's

Hello,

Since version 7.3 of PostgreSQL it's possible to create schema's. The
User's Guide (paragraph 2.8.4) says that it is not possible to view
objects from a schema you do not own:

"By default, users cannot see the objects in schemas they do not own."

I'm using PostgreSQL 7.3.4 under Linux. As the administrator I created
two schema's for two users:

create schema vosf authorization vosf;
create schema snefru authorization snefru;

If I logon to the database with psql as user vosf and create a table, it
is created under schema vosf. That's good. If I logon to the same
database with psql as user snefru and issue:

\d vosf.*

I can see all tables within the vosf schema. Paragraph 2.8.4 says I
should not. I cannot do selects from these tables, but I think seeing
what tables a user has created and which columns these have is wrong. I
want to use a single database on a single server, but this visibility
issue keeps me using multiple databases. Is it considered a problem? If
so, is it a known problem? Not subscribed anymore to any PostgreSQL
list, I searched the archives, but did not find a similar question.

Thanks for any help. PostgreSQL is a great database.

Fred

Fred Vos <fred.vos@uvt.nl> writes:
> Since version 7.3 of PostgreSQL it's possible to create schema's. The
> User's Guide (paragraph 2.8.4) says that it is not possible to view
> objects from a schema you do not own:

> "By default, users cannot see the objects in schemas they do not own."

Poor choice of verb, I think ... it should say "cannot access the objects".

> Is it considered a problem?

No, it isn't.  The \d commands rely only on being able to read the
system catalogs, which is a facility we do not intend to eliminate.

            regards, tom lane