Re: superusers are members of all roles?

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:54 PM, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote:
>> * Andrew Dunstan (andrew@dunslane.net) wrote:
>>> The surprising (to me) consequence was that every superuser was
>>> locked out of the system. I had not granted them (or anyone) the
>>> role, but nevertheless these lines took effect.

>> As I recall, the way we allow superusers to set role to other roles is
>> by considering the superuser to be a member of every role. Now, I agree
>> that such an approach doesn't make sense for pg_hba consideration.

> See bug #5763, and subsequent emails.  Short version: Tom argued it
> wasn't a bug; Peter and I felt that it was.

The problem here is that if Andrew had had the opposite case (a
positive-logic hba entry requiring membership in some group to get into
a database), and that had locked out superusers, he'd be on the warpath
about that too.  And with a lot more reason.

Therefore, "fixing" this without introducing even-more-surprising
behaviors is going to be a very ticklish business.  I remain on the side
of the fence that says it's not a bug.
        regards, tom lane