Re: Delegating superuser tasks to new security roles (Was: Granting control of SUSET gucs to non-superusers)

> On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:51 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> wrote:
>
> Simply using superuser_arg() isn't sufficient is exactly the point that
> I'm trying to make. As a 'landlord', I might very well want to have
> some kind of 'landlord' role that isn't directly a superuser but which
> could *become* a superuser by having been GRANT'd a superuser role- but
> I certainly don't want that role's objects to be able to be messed with
> by the tenant.

> If one of those other non-superuser roles is, itself, a role that can
> become a superuser

If you have a sandbox-superuser who can do anything within the sandbox but nothing outside the sandbox, then you need a pretty good wall at the periphery of the sandbox. Breaking sandbox-superuser-ishness into multiple distinct privileges rather than one monolithic privilege doesn't change the need for a good wall at the periphery. The pg_manage_database_objects role doesn't encompass all sandbox-superuser privileges, but it is on that side of the wall.

We could agree to move the wall a little, and say that non-superuser roles who have the ability to become superusers are on the other side of the wall. That's fine. I'd have to rework the patch a bit, but conceptually that seems doable. We could also say that non-superusers who are members of privileged roles (pg_execute_server_programs, pg_signal_backend, etc) are likewise on the other side of that wall.

Does that work?

—
Mark Dilger
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