Re: [Patch] Check file type before calling AllocateFile() for files out of pg data directory to avoid potential issues (e.g. hang).

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On 2019-Apr-24, Paul Guo wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 12:49 PM Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> wrote:
>>> This seems like a bad idea to me. IMO we want to support using a pipe
>>> etc here. If the admin creates a fifo like this without attaching a
>>> program it seems like it's their fault.

>> Oh, I never know this application scenario before. So yes, for this, we
>> need to keep the current code logic in copy code.

> But the pgstat.c patch seems reasonable to me.

Nah, I don't buy that one either. Nobody has any business creating any
non-Postgres files in the stats directory ... and if somebody does want
to stick a FIFO in there, perhaps for debug purposes, why should we stop
them?

The case with COPY is a bit different, since there it's reasonable to be
worried about collisions with other users' files --- but I agree with
Andres that this change would eliminate too many valid use-cases.

regards, tom lane