Re: user authentication crash by Erik Luke (20-08-2001; 1.3kb)

"Thomas Yackel" <yackelt(at)ohsu(dot)edu> writes:
> I got the error: "Bad abstime external representation ''" when attempted to start psql as a particular user and the postmaster shutdown.

> The problem, we discovered, is that this user had a carriage return contained within his password. Changing the password to remove the CR avoided the system shutdown.

Hmm. I can see how a linefeed in a password would create a problem (it
breaks the line-oriented formatting of the pg_pwd file). However, I
can't reproduce a postmaster crash here. Either I'm not testing the
right combination of circumstances, or current sources are more robust
about this than 7.1. That's not unlikely given that Bruce rewrote the
password-file-parsing code a couple months ago.

In any case it seems like it'd be a good idea to forbid nonprinting
characters in passwords. Comments anyone?

regards, tom lane