Re: Why is lc_messages superuser only?

On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 11:20:15AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> writes:
> > Is there a reason for this?
>
> Two arguments I can recall:
>
> (1) Having log messages emitted in a language that the DBA can't read
> would be a useful tactic for a Bad Guy trying to cover his tracks.
>
> (2) Setting lc_messages to a value incompatible with the database
> encoding would be likely to result in PANIC or worse.
>
> If we had more-robust locale support, I could see separating lc_messages
> into one setting for messages bound to the client and one for messages
> bound to the log, and making the latter superuser only (or, more likely,
> PGC_SIGHUP, because surely you'd want DB-wide consistency). But we
> are nowhere near being able to do that.

Ok. That makes a lot of sense, unfortunately. Hopefully something we can
get sometime in the future, then :-)

//Magnus