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Commit 22890097 authored by Thomas G. Lockhart's avatar Thomas G. Lockhart
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Clean up markup for first useful version.

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......@@ -2,6 +2,50 @@
<Title>Security</Title>
<Para>
Database security is addressed at several levels:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Data base file protection. All files stored within the database
are protected from reading by any account other than the
<productname>Postgres</productname> superuser account.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Connections from a client to the database server are, by
default, allowed only via a local Unix socket, not via TCP/IP
sockets. The backend must be started with the
<literal>-i</literal> option to allow non-local clients to connect.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Client connections can be restricted by IP address and/or user
name via the <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> file in <envar>PG_DATA</envar>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Client connections may be authenticated vi other external packages.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Each user in <productname>Postgres</productname> is assigned a
username and (optionally) a password. By default, users do not
have write access to databases they did not create.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Users may be assigned to <firstterm>groups</firstterm>, and
table access may be restricted based on group privileges.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<Sect1>
<Title>User Authentication</Title>
......@@ -31,6 +75,9 @@ to the user-id of user <replaceable>postgres</replaceable>.
The effective user-id is used
as the basis for access control checks. No other authentication is
conducted.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
......@@ -50,9 +97,72 @@ systems available. Of course, host-based authentication is not fool-proof in
Unix, either. It is possible for determined intruders to also
masquerade the origination host. Those security issues are beyond the
scope of <Productname>Postgres</Productname>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>User Names and Groups</title>
<para>
To define a new user, run the
<application>createuser</application> utility program.
</para>
<para>
To assign a user or set of users to a new group, one must
define the group itself, and assign users to that group. In
<application>Postgres</application> these steps are not currently
supported with a <command>create group</command> command. Instead,
the groups are defined by inserting appropriate values into the
<literal>pg_group</literal> system table, and then using the
<command>grant</command> command to assign privileges to the
group.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>Creating Users</title>
<para>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Creating Groups</title>
<para>
Currently, there is no easy interface to set up user groups. You
have to explicitly insert/update the <literal>pg_group table</literal>.
For example:
jolly=> insert into pg_group (groname, grosysid, grolist)
jolly=> values ('posthackers', '1234', '{5443, 8261}');
INSERT 548224
jolly=> grant insert on foo to group posthackers;
CHANGE
jolly=>
The fields in pg_group are:
* groname: the group name. This a name and should be purely
alphanumeric. Do not include underscores or other punctuation.
* grosysid: the group id. This is an int4. This should be unique for
each group.
* grolist: the list of pg_user id's that belong in the group. This
is an int4[].
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Assigning Users to Groups</title>
<para>
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Access Control</Title>
......@@ -83,6 +193,9 @@ Access Privilege
The use of access privilege to limit reading, writing and setting
of rules on classes is covered in
<citetitle>grant/revoke(l)</citetitle>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
......@@ -98,8 +211,12 @@ and
only operate for the owner of the class. As mentioned above, these
operations are <emphasis>never</emphasis>
permitted on system catalogs.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect1>
<Sect1>
<Title>Functions and Rules</Title>
......@@ -113,6 +230,7 @@ control over who can define functions (e.g., write to relations with
SQL fields) and rules. Audit trails and alerters on
<literal>pg_class</literal>, <literal>pg_user</literal>
and <literal>pg_group</literal> are also recommended.
</para>
<Sect2>
<Title>Functions</Title>
......@@ -126,6 +244,8 @@ backend server runs with its real and effective user-id set to
internal data structures from inside of trusted functions. Hence,
among many other things, such functions can circumvent any system
access controls. This is an inherent problem with user-defined C functions.
</para>
</sect2>
<Sect2>
<Title>Rules</Title>
......@@ -133,11 +253,11 @@ access controls. This is an inherent problem with user-defined C functions.
<Para>
Like SQL functions, rules always run with the identity and
permissions of the user who invoked the backend server.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
Caveats
</title>
<title>Caveats</title>
<para>
There are no plans to explicitly support encrypted data inside of
......@@ -146,10 +266,30 @@ There are no plans to explicitly support encrypted data inside of
data within user-defined functions). There are no plans to explicitly
support encrypted network connections, either, pending a total rewrite
of the frontend/backend protocol.
</para>
<para>
User names, group names and associated system identifiers (e.g., the
contents of <literal>pg_user.usesysid</literal>) are assumed to be unique
throughout a database. Unpredictable results may occur if they are
not.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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Local variables:
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sgml-shorttag:t
sgml-minimize-attributes:nil
sgml-always-quote-attributes:t
sgml-indent-step:1
sgml-indent-data:t
sgml-parent-document:nil
sgml-default-dtd-file:"./reference.ced"
sgml-exposed-tags:nil
sgml-local-catalogs:"/usr/lib/sgml/CATALOG"
sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
End:
-->
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