Re: Proposal: Save user's original authenticated identity for logging

Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu> writes:
> I wonder if there isn't room to handle this the other way around. To
> configure Postgres to not need a CREATE ROLE for every role but
> delegate the user management to the external authentication service.

> So Postgres would consider the actual role to be the one kerberos said
> it was even if that role didn't exist in pg_role. Presumably you would
> want to delegate to a corresponding authorization system as well so if
> the role was absent from pg_role (or more likely fit some pattern)
> Postgres would ignore pg_role and consult the authorization system
> configured like AD or whatever people use with Kerberos these days.

This doesn't sound particularly workable: how would you manage
inside-the-database permissions? Kerberos isn't going to know
what "view foo" is, let alone know whether you should be allowed
to read or write it. So ISTM there has to be a role to hold
those permissions. Certainly, you could allow multiple external
identities to share a role ... but that works today.

regards, tom lane