Re: predefined role(s) for VACUUM and ANALYZE

Greetings,

* Robert Haas (robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com) wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 1:50 PM David G. Johnston
> <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >> Still, it seems somewhat appealing to give
> >> people fine-grained control over this, rather than just "on" or "off".
> > Appealing enough to consume a couple of permission bits?
> > https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAKFQuwZ6dhjTFV7Bwmehe1N3%3Dk484y4mM22zuYjVEU2dq9V1aQ%40mail.gmail.com
>
> I think we're down to 0 remaining now, so it'd be hard to justify
> consuming 2 of 0 remaining bits. However, I maintain that the solution
> to this is either (1) change the aclitem representation to get another
> 32 bits or (2) invent a different system for less-commonly used
> permission bits. Checking permissions for SELECT or UPDATE has to be
> really fast, because most queries will need to do that sort of thing.
> If we represented VACUUM or ANALYZE in some other way in the catalogs
> that was more scalable but less efficient, it wouldn't be a big deal
> (although there's the issue of code duplication to consider).

I've long felt that we should redefine the way the ACLs work to have a
distinct set of bits for each object type. We don't need to support a
CONNECT bit on a table, yet we do today and we expend quite a few bits
in that way. Having that handled on a per-object-type basis instead
would allow us to get quite a bit more mileage out of the existing 32bit
field before having to introduce more complicated storage methods like
using a bit to tell us to go look up more ACLs somewhere else.

Thanks,

Stephen