contrib/sepgsql regression tests are a no-go

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Kohei KaiGai <kaigai(at)kaigai(dot)gr(dot)jp>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers(at)postgreSQL(dot)org
Subject: contrib/sepgsql regression tests are a no-go
Date: 2011-09-26 01:07:14
Message-ID: 11885.1316999234@sss.pgh.pa.us
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So I thought it would be a good idea to enable contrib/sepgsql in the
Fedora build of 9.1. This soon crashed and burned, though, because

(1) if you build sepgsql, there is no way to omit the sepgsql regression
tests, other than by not regression-testing contrib at all. I didn't
see that as a step forward.

(2) the sepgsql regression tests cannot be run without having done
assorted root-privilege-required tweaks to the SELinux configuration.
RPMs are not customarily built with root privilege, and even if they
were, having one fool with the SELinux configuration like that would
set off alarm bells for a lot of people.

In particular, point (2) means that "make check" is a joke. You can't
do it without serious side-effects on the state of the host system,
which is contrary to the entire purpose of that make target.

I am of the opinion that these regression tests need to be reworked
so that they do not require a nonstandard SELinux environment.
I realize however that that's likely to take nontrivial work.
As a stopgap, what about removing sepgsql from the list of contrib
modules tested by "make -C contrib check"? (I haven't looked at
exactly how ugly it might be to do that, nor whether we'd have to also
disable installcheck from recursing to sepgsql.)

regards, tom lane

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