Re: libpq 8.4 beta1: $PGHOST complains about missing root.crt

* Peter Eisentraut (peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net) wrote:
> This is not a question of new client with old server. The new version of the
> client has a more secure default that will possibly prevent it from connecting
> to *any* server that is not adequately configured.

A properly configured server could cause a failure too unless the client
is *also* properly configured. Sure, it's good for people to do. No, I
don't think we should break things if people don't build out a whole PKI
for PG and configure all their certs correctly. It's pie-in-the-sky to
think everyone will do that, and in the end most will just say "SSL
breaks stuff, so we'll disable it" which certainly isn't better.

> But it's a default, so the user can change it.

It should be the default to connect, maybe with a warning.

> Consider the analogy that a new web browser comes out that verifies server
> certificates (as of course all respectable browsers do nowadays) whereas the
> previous version one didn't. The right fix there is certainly not to
> downgrade this to a warning when connecting to an older web server.

Uh, no, the right fix is to have a warning/prompt (as pretty much all
web browsers today do) but then continue to connect. Also, the
web-browser analogy completely falls apart when you consider that the
use case is significantly different (how many times have you connected
to a PG server that you didn't know?).

Thanks,

Stephen