Re: HBA files w/include support?

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 11:28:45PM -0600, Jerry Sievers wrote:
> > One issue with this is that pg_hba.conf is order sensitive, which could
> > become a trap for the unwary if includes are used carelessly.
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> The other thing that comes to mind, is that as opposed to
> postgresql.conf and the include scenario there... one can do show all or
> query from pg_stat_activity just to see what setting they ended up
> with. 
> 
> I'm not aware of any way to probe what hba rules are loaded at runtime
> and thus, debugging hba config changes not really possible.

In an ideal world we would have a tool where you could plug in a
username, database, IP address, and test pg_hba.conf file and it would
report what line is matched.

> I presume that a simple scenario involving just 1 level of includes not
> too difficult to grok but nested includes sure might be a foot gun
> unless there was a way to dump the resulting configs somehow.
> 
> Thus pasting hba files together externally a more reliable approach.

You certainly would not have a visual idea of what line is matched
_first_.  We have the same problem with postgresql.conf includes, though
the last match wins there --- not sure if that makes it any easier.

I think one concern is that pg_hba.conf is more security-oriented than
postgresql.conf.

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