Are you working on an initdb option for passwords, so we don't have
pg_user world-unreadable by default?

> 
> > What, pg_user is not readable by world anymore?  This could be a problem.
> 
> It has to be this way, otherwise it would be possible for user to see other
> users' passwords in pg_user.  I spoke to you all about this when I first started.
> I was going to make a separate relation (pg_password), but I was convinced not
> to since there is a one to one correlation between users and passwords.  At this
> point I sent email to the effect that pg_user could no longer be readable by
> the group 'public'.  If it was readable by public, then the passwords would have
> to be encrypted in pg_user.  If this is the case, then the frontends will have
> to pass an unencrypted password over the network.  Again this degrades the
> security of PostgreSQL.
> 
> The real solution to this problem would be to create a pg_privileges relation,
> overhauling the privileges system entirely.  Then we could just restrict access
> to the password column of pg_user.  However, I would suggest that the entire
> pg_privileges table be cached in shared memory to speed things up.  I am unsure
> if the catalog table are cached in shared memory or not (They really should be,
> but then this would probably require some logging to files in case of system
> crash).
> 
> In the meantime, there should really be nothing that the average user will need
> from pg_user.  The '\d' is the only problem I have encountered thus far, and I
> hope to solve that problem soon.  Therefore, if you really, really need something
> from pg_user, then you need to have select privileges given to you explicitly,
> or you could explicitly give them to public.  This would, however, give public
> the ability to see user passwords (If you are using, HBA only, then just give
> public the select over pg_user).
> 
> Todd A. Brandys
> brandys@eng3.hep.uiuc.edu
> 
> 


-- 
Bruce Momjian
maillist@candle.pha.pa.us

Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:11:01 -0500 (EST)
Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: New pg_pwd patch and stuff