Re: [HACKERS] Security question : Database access control

On Tue, 2002-10-22 at 12:12, Igor Georgiev wrote:
> > > edit *pg_hba.conf *
> > > # Allow any user on the local system to connect to any
> > > # database under any username, but only via an IP connection:
> > > host all 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 trust
> > > # The same, over Unix-socket connections:
> > > local all trust
> > what about reading pg_hba.conf comments?
> > local all md5
> >
>
> Ok, but my question actually isn't about pg_hba.conf comments, i read enough
> but what will stop root from adding this lines or doing su - postgres ??

Next your going to ask what will stop root from stopping your
PostgreSQL, compiling a second copy with authentication disabled and
using your data directory as it's source :)

If you want to prevent root from accomplishing these things, you're
going to have to look to your kernel for help. The kernel must prevent
root from changing users, starting / stopping applications, or touching
certain filesystems.

PostgreSQL will let you put a password on the data. But that only works
if they actually try to use PostgreSQL to get at the data.

There are a couple of tools which were designed to recover database data
while the db is not running.

--
Rod Taylor