Re: BUG #15810: Using custom directory on external HDD gives permission error

Omer Ozarslan <omerfaruko(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 6:59 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> I'm kind of disinclined to provide a way to skip the permissions
>> check though, especially in view of the fact that there's no good
>> reason to use a Windows filesystem as native storage for Unix.

> Would it be possible to provide a way to skip permission check and then let
> it fail in case user needs to use these specific features? I don't expect
> to use tablespaces for example. Does lack of these permissions (or other
> unix fs features like symlinks) bring some limitations to the point the
> database cannot function at all?

We consider it insecure (because it is) and we won't support it.
This is not very different from the complaints we occasionally get
about Postgres not being willing to run as root. That is also a bad
idea, and we won't support that either, regardless of any argument
that might be made that it-makes-sense-in-my-niche-use-case.

In both cases, it's not that hard to hack the check out of the
source code if you are bound and determined to do so.

regards, tom lane