Re: Granting SET and ALTER SYSTE privileges for GUCs

On 3/30/22 09:26, Tom Lane wrote:
> After sleeping on it, I have a modest proposal for simplifying
> these issues. Consider this design:
>
> 1. In the SET code path, we assume (without any catalog lookup)
> that USERSET GUCs can be set. Only for SUSET GUCs do we perform
> a permissions lookup. (ALTER SYSTEM does a lookup in both cases.)
>
> 2. Given this, the default ACL for any GUC can be empty, greatly
> simplifying all these management issues. Superusers could do what
> they want anyway, so modeling an "owner's default grant" becomes
> unnecessary.
>
> What this loses is the ability to revoke public SET permissions
> on USERSET GUCs. I claim that that is not so valuable as to
> justify all the complication needed to deal with it. (If a GUC
> seems to require some defenses, why is it USERSET?) Avoiding
> a permissions lookup in the default SET code path seems like
> a pretty important benefit, too. If we force that to happen
> it's going to be a noticeable drag on functions with SET clauses.
>
>

The last point is telling, so +1

cheers

andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com