Re: AW: [HACKERS] Solution to the pg_user passwd problem !?? (c)

>
> On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> > >
> > > The command
> > > copy pg_user to stdout;
> > >
> > > will also show the cleartext password and I think it is hard to do a rewrite
> > > here,
> > > since this would also affect the pg_dump ?
> >
> > OK, I have committed code that removes the REVOKE from initdb, and does
> > not allow them to do any adding or altering of users if there is a
> > password involved AND the ACL for pg_user is null. It prints a nice
> > message telling them they need to issue the REVOKE command so normal
> > users can't read the passwords.
>
> I put the REVOKE back in, with the appropriate rule rewrite...I've
> tried it here and it works cleanly, and just masks out the passwd
> entry...doesn't compensate for the 'copy' problem, but its better then
> expecting the admin to go do the revoke on his own :(

Sorry, don't like it. First, by doing a REVOKE ALL and GRANT SELECT,
you have the same permissions as default, except the pg_user permissions
are not null and therefore my check allows it.

Second, if COPY works, then passwords are not secure, and there is no
reason for the feature. Either a feature is secure and valuable, or
unsecure and worse then unvaluable because people think it is secure,
and it is not.

--
Bruce Momjian
maillist(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us