Re: Bugtraq: Having Fun With PostgreSQL

Tom Lane wrote:
> Michael Fuhr <mike(at)fuhr(dot)org> writes:
>> A message entitled "Having Fun With PostgreSQL" was posted to Bugtraq
>> today. I haven't read through the paper yet so I don't know if the
>> author discusses security problems that need attention or if the
>> article is more like a compilation of "Stupid PostgreSQL Tricks."
>> http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/471541/30/0/threaded
>
> It appears he's discovered the astonishing facts that
>
> 1. The out-of-the-box authentication setup is "trust".
> 2. A superuser can make the database do whatever he wants (within
> the OS privilege limits of the postgres user).
>
> We've debated #1 before, and a lot of repackagers change it, but I
> don't really feel a strong urge to change it in the source distro.
> As for #2, that's not a bug, it's intended behavior.

On #1, the fact that we allow trust as default is embarrassing. It would
be just as bad as having the default root password be password on a
linux box. We should be using md5 and force passing the password with
initdb.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> regards, tom lane
>
> PS: I skimmed the paper pretty fast, so it's possible I missed
> something interesting, but it sure looked like "what else is new?"
>
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