Re: allowing users to change the IP-addresses that are allowed to connect to postgresql

> Hello.
> I have a postgresql 7.4.5 running.
> On the server i have a few databases, all owned and administered by
different > users.
> The users sometimes change access-rules to their databases, in particular
they > change access rules based on IP-addresses, which i have to do for them
manually in pg_hba.conf.
>
> is there some way to avoid the pg_hba.conf-file?
> optimally i would like the access rights to be stored with the user and/or
the > database and tables. is this possible?
> thus allowing users to change access rights themselfs.
>
> if it is not possible in 7.4.5, is it planned for 8.0?

You could write a web module to do this (php, perl or java). Pgadmin wouldn't
support something like this, and I'm not sure what would be available in
other packages. In any case it isn't very difficult and of course you'd have
a few options regarding security including SSL and database authorization.

Alternatively, if your users are patient, you could store the configuration
data in a table, run a script in perl (or even bash and awk) that once a
minute or so queries the table, formats a new pg_hba.conf, and checks for
actual changes before running pg_ctl. Just make sure the script is running as
the unix user that the database runs as.

Best regards,

Jim Wilson