Re: Strange permission problem regarding pg_settings

"Florian Pflug" <fgp@phlo.org> writes:
> Sorry for not specifing the exact postgres versions involved initially - I
> believed that the problem were different default on redhat and debian, or
> different compiling options...

> RedHat-9: postgres 7.3.2-3
> debian: postgres 7.3.2r1-5 (sid backport)

Hm, could the debian version have that rewrite patch, even though it
claims to be 7.3.2?  I'd have expected the behavior to be the same
if they're both straight 7.3.2.

> I tried setting the relacl for the pg_settings table to {=rw}, but I still
> get permission denied.

This does not surprise me; the original code was just plain buggy.
I suspect it is applying some completely inappropriate check (like
checking some other permission bit than UPDATE), so that the apparently
correct failure is really coincidental, and it still fails when it
should succeed.  Unfortunately I don't have a running copy of 7.3.2 to
trace through ...

Anyway, in the short run I'd suggest updating to 7.3.5, which will let
you do the UPDATE even though it really shouldn't :-(.  The cleanups
I'm worried about making are for future development.

            regards, tom lane