Re: superuser unable to modify settings of a system table

Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> >  Is there really a use case for users fiddling with pg_proc, pg_class,
> > etc. directly?
>
> There's a use case for *superusers* to fiddle with them, yes.
> (Superusers are presumed to be adults.)  I think I recommend a quick
> UPDATE on some catalog at least once a month on the lists.
>
> You might care to consider the fact that no modern Unix system prevents
> root from doing rm -rf /, even though that's "obviously" disastrous.
> Yet (stretching the analogy all out of shape) there's no convenient user
> tool for rearranging the contents of all the inodes on a filesystem.
>
> > At any rate, I'd be happy to drop that part of the proposal.  It would
> > be a step forward just to permit (even without
> > allow_system_table_mods) those changes which don't alter the structure
> > of the catalog.  For ALTER TABLE, the SET STATISTICS, (RE)SET
> > (attribute_option), SET STORAGE, CLUSTER ON, SET WITHOUT CLUSTER, and
> > (RE)SET (reloptions) forms are all things that fall into this
> > category, I believe.
>
> It would be far less work to just drop allow_system_table_mods to SUSET.
> And we wouldn't get questions about which forms of ALTER TABLE require
> it.

Are we going to make the allow_system_table_mods to SUSET change?  Is it
a TODO?

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +