Re: Open 7.3 items

tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) wrote

> * If a connection request has a username with a trailing '@' (and no
> embedded '@'), then the '@' is stripped and connection proceeds.
>
> * Otherwise, '@dbname' is appended to the given username and
> connection proceeds.
<snip>
> It might be worth recalling the reason that we are going through this
> pushup in the first place: Marc wants to be able to assign the same
> username to two different users who want to access two different
> databases. If he would be happy with the answer "give them two
> different usernames", we'd not be having this discussion at all.
> Do you think he will be happy with the answer "you can give them
> the same username as long as it ends in '@'"? I think it's highly
> unlikely that he'll be satisfied with that --- he wants to *not*
> have constraints on the names he gives out for local users.

What about usernames that have trailing or embedded @'s? I mean you are
eseentially making the @ a magic character. I admit I havent looked at
the source, but doesnt this method effectively put a constraint on the
use of @? What if an isp, that could use this feature, already has
usernames with @'s in them (say a customers email address, etc)? Will
they need to assign all new usernames to make this thing function?

What if you want to give one person (one username) access to 2 db's?
Does that mean, under the current scheme, that the two accounts you
create can have the same username but have different passwords? What if
you want to erase the "one" account (do you have to remember to erase all
n accounts you created with the same username, or all n except the ones
that were never mean to be the same person but share the same username)?

Normally a user has a unique name. Does anyone see a problem if/when the
whole db access thing becomes part of the privileges system? If you
implement the "multiple users same username", then you'll have to
reassign all but one of the users to new usernames.