Re: ALTER SYSTEM vs symlink

Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:
> * Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote:
>> How is it that we don't need rolcatupdate but we do need a way to shut
>> off ALTER SYSTEM?  Doesn't compute, IMO.

> I'd like the ability to control all of the above, ultimately.  I don't
> believe that we should be allowing the superuser to always modify the
> catalog directly- and things like the sepgsql module can actually
> address that and limit when the superuser is allowed to with better
> granularity then what rolcatupdate provided (or was ever likely to
> provide, being a single boolean role attribute).

Mumble.  I have no objection to sepgsql deciding to disallow ALTER SYSTEM
--- after all, the entire point of that module is to enforce arbitrary
annoying restrictions ;-).  But I am not convinced that we need any other
way to turn it off.  As Robert points out, it's far *less* dangerous than
most other superuser-only features.

Also, disallowing ALTER SYSTEM altogether strikes me as an extremely
brute-force solution to any of the specific issues you mention.  If you're
worried about locking down shared_preload_libraries, for example, it would
be far better to lock down just that one variable.
        regards, tom lane