Re: Roles with empty password (probably bug in libpq and in psql as well).

On Tue, 2012-07-24 at 16:41 +0400, Dmitriy Igrishin wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> According to http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/sql-alterrole.html
>
> A query:
> ALTER ROLE davide WITH PASSWORD NULL;
> removes a role's password.
>
> But it's impossible to pass empty (NULL) password to the backend
> by using libpq, because connectOptions2() defined the fe-connect.c
> reads a password from the ~/.pgpass even when a password
> specified as an empty string literal ("").
>
> Also, when connecting to the server via psql(1) by using a role
> with removed password psql exists with status 2 and prints the error
> message:
> psql: fe_sendauth: no password supplied
>

Yes, and? I don't see how this could be a bug. If your authentication
method asks for a password, you need to have one. If you have resetted
it, well, you shouldn't have. Or you really want that your users could
connect without a password, and then you need to change your
authentication method with trust. But no-one will encourage you to do
that.

--
Guillaume
http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info
http://www.dalibo.com