Re: Adding line to pg_hba.conf for a specific group makes superuser authentication fail in 9.0?

From: Glyn Astill <glynastill(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk>
To: Kevin Grittner <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov>, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
Cc: "pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org" <pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Adding line to pg_hba.conf for a specific group makes superuser authentication fail in 9.0?
Date: 2011-07-27 20:22:29
Message-ID: 1311798149.1639.YahooMailNeo@web26004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com
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> From: Kevin Grittner <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov>

>Glyn Astill <glynastill(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>
>>  How can I specifically catch superusers?
>
> Create a group (nobody?) that you don't grant to any users.  Only
> superusers will be a member of it.
>

Ah of course, simple, thanks Kevin.

I can't help but feel that there should be something in the docs for 9.0 to specify this, since it is a behaviour difference from 8.4 and earlier.

The docs (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/interactive/auth-pg-hba-conf.html) do say:

"Recall that there is no real distinction between users and groups        in PostgreSQL; a + mark really means "match any of the roles that are directly or indirectly members        of this role", while a name without a + mark matches        only that specific role"

Maybe the docs should be embellished to also say "since a superuser is automatically considered a member of any group, it should be taken into account that names with a + mark will affect all superusers (although this was not the case prior to 9.0)" or something along those lines.

Glyn 

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