Re: Making pg_config and pg_controldata output available via SQL

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 02:32:47PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Joshua Tolley <eggyknap@gmail.com> writes:
> > I'd really like to see the data from pg_config and pg_controldata available
> > through SQL, such as by adding output to pg_show_all_settings(), or adding new
> > SRFs named something like pg_config() and pg_controldata(). Does this make as
> > much sense to the rest of the world as it does to me? In particular it's
> > useful to be able to find $libdir without requiring pg_config, as some
> > packagers tend not to include it in anything put the -dev packages, but all
> > those settings seem useful to have on hand, and in at least most cases
> > shouldn't be tough to expose via SQL. Comments?
>
> I wonder whether there's a security issue there.  Telling an attacker
> whether you've been built with feature X seems like possibly useful
> info that he couldn't otherwise get without local machine access.
> In particular, we already try to avoid exposing server filesystem
> path information.

I'd wondered the same thing, without spending enough time on it to come to a
conclusion beyond "perhaps making the functions executable only by superuser
would suffice".

--
Joshua Tolley / eggyknap
End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com