Re: BUG #16531: listen_addresses wide open?

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 3:03 PM Bee.Lists <bee(dot)lists(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

>
> > On Jul 8, 2020, at 5:57 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> >
> >>> On Jul 8, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> >>> Just to be sure, "show listen_addresses" actually shows that,
> >>> and not something else?
> >
> >> I didn’t check, but then changed it to ‘*’ since troubleshooting these
> connection issues I’m having.
> >
> > Well, my point here is that you didn't close the loop to establish that
> > what you thought you'd set listen_addresses to had actually taken effect.
> > The default value is 'localhost', and there are several ways that that
> > might still be the active value even if you'd edited the config file to
> > say something else.
>
> OK, then why even have a config file if it’s ignored, or possibly not
> ignored? Isn’t that the point of a config file?
>

Consider that usually software will read its configuration files only when
the software is launched. PostgreSQL, being a long-running service,
provides some facilities to change configuration while it is still
running. However, that capability comes with rules and limitations. The
setting you are talking about it one of those with a limitation.

> >> The issue was that it WAS connecting when set to the LAN IP4 address
> only.
> >
> > That's pretty hard to believe; I think a configuration oversight is
> > a much more likely explanation.
>
> Well, all of a sudden, my app was complaining that Pogtgres wasn’t
> accepting on that port, when the app had been using just that. Nothing
> changed and it suddenly went deaf. People suggested looking at the
> listen_addresses directive.

Given how vague that all is it's still going to be supposed that there is
operator error involved relative to the listen_address configuration rather
than the server being bugged and ignoring it. Especially since your
observed problem is that the application couldn't connect to the server but
your problem report is that the application could connect even though it
probably shouldn't have.

In short, this doesn't look like a bug and if you are having application
connectivity issues help for those is preferably provided on the -general
list, not -bugs.

David J.