Re: postgres uptime

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, Tom Lane wrote:
> 
> > Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl> writes:
> >> Is the uptime kept internally anywhere?  Or even the start time?
> >
> > No, and no (at least not in any globally accessible variable).
> >
> >> If it is, it would be quite trivial to provide access to it
> >
> > Not really --- in the EXEC_BACKEND case, we'd have to do something
> > explicit to pass the value down to backends.
> 
> Couldn't it be stored in shared memory?

We already have a mechanism to pass global variables to EXEC_BACKEND so
that part is pretty simple.

> > I'd like to see more than one person requesting this (and with solider 
> > rationales) before it gets added to TODO.  If I wanted to be picky I 
> > would suggest that knowledge of the server start time might be useful 
> > information to an attacker.  It would for instance narrow down the 
> > number of possible starting seeds for the postmaster's random number 
> > generator.
> 
> Wouldn't an attacker have to have access to the server in the first place 
> to get that information?

I think so, and if they do, they can use 'ps' to see the start time of
the postmaster.

However, I do think this is an 8.1 item.

--  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
359-1001+  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square,
Pennsylvania19073