Re: Adding support for SE-Linux security

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 05:45, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>>>> My guess is that a credible SEPostgres offering will require a long-term
>>>> amount of work at least equal to, and very possibly a good deal more
>>>> than, what it took to make a native Windows port.
>>
>>> The SEPostgres community is surely a lot smaller than the Windows
>>> community, but I'm not sure whether the effort estimate is accurate or
>>> not.  If "credible" includes "row-level security", then I think I
>>> might agree, but right now we're just trying to get off the ground.
>>
>> It's been perfectly clear since day one, and was reiterated as recently
>> as today
>> http://archives.postgresql.org/message-id/4B21757E.7090806@2ndquadrant.com
>> that what the security community wants is row-level security.  The
>
> If that is true, then shouldn't we have an implementation of row level
> security *first*, and then an implementation of selinux hooks that
> work with this row level security feature? Rather than first doing
> selinux hooks, then row level security, which will likely need new
> and/or changed hooks...
>
> I'm not convinced that row level security is actually that necessary
> (though it's a nice feature, with or without selinux), but if it is,
> it seems we are approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

I don't think there's a correct ordering to SE-PostgreSQL and
row-level security. They're better together, but I don't think either
has to be done first. If we were going to pick one to do first, I'd
pick SE-PostgreSQL. Row-level security is going to be a @$#! of a
project if we want it done right (and we do).

...Robert