Re: pg_cancel_backend by non-superuser

On 12/11/2011 05:29 PM, Torello Querci wrote:
> I will try to adjust the patch and submit for the next Commit Fest if
> this is ok for you.
>

I don't think we'll need this, it will take a bit to explain why though.

First, thanks for returning this topic to discussion and keeping up with
all the controversy around it. You said back in February this was your
first post here, and I doubt you expected that 10 months later this
would still be active and argued over. The fact that you're still here
and everyone knows your name now is itself an accomplishment, many
people just give up on their submission ideas under far less negative
feedback.

I just took a long look at all three of the submissions in this area
we've gotten. The central idea that made yours different was making the
database owner the person allowed to cancel things. That hadn't been
suggested as a cancellation requisite before that I know of, and this
code may wander in that direction one day. It's just a bit too much to
accept right now. You seem to need that specific feature for your
environment. If that's the case, you might want to develop something
that works that way, but handles the concerns raised here. The fact
that it's not acceptable for a database owner to cancel a superuser
query is the biggest objection, there were some others too. Ultimately
it may take a reworking of database permissions to really make this
acceptable, which is a larger job than I think you were trying to get
involved with.

Unfortunately, when I look at the new spec we have now, I don't see
anything from what you did that we can re-use. It's too specific to the
owner-oriented idea. The two other patches that have been submitted
both are closer to what we've decided we want now. What I'm going to do
here is mark your submission "returned with feedback".

Rather than wait for something new from you, I'm going to review and
rework the other two submissions. That I can start on right now. It's
taken so long to reach this point that I don't want to wait much longer
for another submission here, certainly not until over a month from now
when the next CF starts. We need to get the arguments around a new
version started earlier than that. Thanks for offering to work on this
more, and I hope there's been something about this long wandering
discussion that's been helpful to you. As I said, you did at least make
a good first impression, and that is worth something when it comes to
this group.

--
Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant US greg(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)com Baltimore, MD
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