Postgres CGI Security Problem

From: Chris Hardie <chris(at)summersault(dot)com>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Postgres CGI Security Problem
Date: 1998-08-08 00:49:58
Message-ID: Pine.NEB.4.02.9808071944400.7035-100000@nollie.summersault.com
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The situation: I have one machine with general user access. Some users
(including myself) own a postgres database. Some users (including myself)
use postgres as a back-end for CGI applications, using the Postgres.pm
module for Perl. This requires that user "nobody" (or www, or whomever)
have read/write access to my database.

The problem: While it's very handy that I can write CGI scripts that can
read/write my database, it's a security problem. Other users` CGI scripts
will also make use of the "nobody" identity to access the database, which
means they can potentially read/write the data in my database if they
wanted to.

The fix: You tell me. It would seem to involve a "setuid" of sorts for
how the httpd process accesses the postgres database.

Any help much appreciated!
Chris

---------------------------------------------
Chris Hardie chris(at)summersault(dot)com
http://www.summersault.com/chris
vincendum est
---------------------------------------------

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