Re: pg_hba.conf && ident ...

The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:
> i pg_hba.conf, that host has:
> host    trends_acctng   216.126.72.30   255.255.255.255 ident sameuser
> And its the only time we have ident being used ... 
> right now, its the only theory I ahve to work with ... 

Bingo.  All your cores show the thing waiting inside the ident code:

(gdb) bt
#0  0x18263890 in recvfrom () from /usr/lib/libc.so.4
#1  0x1825062b in recv () from /usr/lib/libc.so.4
#2  0x80ad4d0 in ident (remote_ip_addr={s_addr = 508067544}, local_ip_addr={     s_addr = 56131288}, remote_port=27631,
local_port=14357,   ident_failed=0xbfbfeeef "�\004\023 \b,\207\024\b\212\217(\030\223���\203￿\204￿|�\n\b�\214+\0304￿P",
  ident_username=0xbfbfeef0 "\004\023 \b,\207\024\b\212\217(\030\223���\203￿\204￿|�\n\b�\214+\0304￿P") at hba.c:635
 
#3  0x80ad912 in authident (raddr=0x82011ac, laddr=0x8201140,    postgres_username=0x8201261 "db", auth_arg=0x8201304
"sameuser")  at hba.c:869
 
#4  0x80ac5b9 in be_recvauth (port=0x8201000) at auth.c:523
#5  0x80e0c4a in readStartupPacket (arg=0x8201000, len=292, pkt=0x820101c)   at postmaster.c:1214
#6  0x80aeb67 in PacketReceiveFragment (port=0x8201000) at pqpacket.c:102
#7  0x80e08ad in ServerLoop () at postmaster.c:982
#8  0x80e039a in PostmasterMain (argc=13, argv=0xbfbffbc4) at postmaster.c:723
#9  0x80aee43 in main (argc=13, argv=0xbfbffbc4) at main.c:93
#10 0x8063393 in _start ()

Looking at the code, there doesn't seem to be any defense against a
broken ident server --- there is no timeout or anything being used here!
Ugh.  Has it always been like this?

Anyway, I think the immediate fix for you is to stop using ident auth
for that host, at least till we can improve this code...
        regards, tom lane