Re: row_security GUC does not behave as documented

Tom,

On Sunday, January 3, 2016, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> The fine manual says that when row_security is set to off, "queries fail
> which would otherwise apply at least one policy". However, a look at
> check_enable_rls() says that that is a true statement only when the user
> is not table owner. If the user *is* table owner, turning off
> row_security seems to amount to just silently disabling RLS, even for
> tables with FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY.
>
> I am not sure if this is a documentation bug or a code bug, but it
> sure looks to be one or the other.

The original reason for changing how row_security works was to avoid a
change in behavior based on a GUC changing. As such, I'm thinking that has
to be a code bug, as otherwise it would be a behavior change due to a GUC
being changed in the FORCE RLS case for table owners.

Thanks,

Stephen