The old text explained what happened if we didn't have working int64
arithmetic. Since that case has been explicitly rejected by configure
since 8.4.3, documenting it in the 9.x branches can only produce confusion.
FreeBSD hasn't made any use of kern.ipc.semmap since 1.1, and newer
releases reject attempts to set it altogether; so stop recommending
that it be adjusted. Per bug #11161.
Back-patch to all supported branches. Before 9.3, also incorporate
commit 7a42dff47, which touches the same text and for some reason
was not back-patched at the time.
Specifically this commit updates forkname_to_number() so that the HINT
message includes "init" fork, and also adds the description of "init" fork
into pg_relation_size() document.
This is a part of the commit 2d00190495
which has fixed the same oversight in master and 9.4. Back-patch to
9.1 where "init" fork was added.
The initialization fork was added in 9.1, but has not been taken into
consideration in documents of get_raw_page function in pageinspect and
storage layout. This commit fixes those oversights.
get_raw_page can read not only a table but also an index, etc. So it
should be documented that the function can read any relation. This commit
also fixes the document of pageinspect that way.
Back-patch to 9.1 where those oversights existed.
Vik Fearing, review by MauMau
The user documentation was vague and not entirely accurate about how
we treat domain inputs for ambiguous operators/functions. Clarify
that, and add an example and some commentary. Per a recent question
from Adam Mackler.
It's acted like this ever since we added domains, so back-patch
to all supported branches.
unix_socket_directories was introduced in 9.3, but the document
in older versions wrongly have mentioned it. This commit replaces
it with the correct older name unix_socket_directory.
This is applied to only 9.2 and older supported versions.
Guillaume Lelarge
Break the list of available options into an <itemizedlist> instead of
inline sentences. This is mostly motivated by wanting to ensure that the
cross-references to the FSM and VM docs don't cross page boundaries in PDF
format; but it seems to me to read more easily this way anyway. I took the
liberty of editorializing a bit further while at it.
Per complaint from Magnus about 9.0.18 docs not building in A4 format.
Patch all active branches so we don't get blind-sided by this particular
issue again in future.
~/.pgpass is a sound choice everywhere, and "peer" authentication is
safe on every platform it supports. Cease to recommend "trust"
authentication, the safety of which is deeply configuration-specific.
Back-patch to 9.0, where pg_upgrade was introduced.
7380b63 changed log_filename so that epoch was not appended to it
when no format specifier is given. But the example of CSV log file name
with epoch still left in log_filename document. This commit removes
such obsolete example.
This commit also documents the defaults of log_directory and
log_filename.
Backpatch to all supported versions.
Christoph Berg
By using curly braces, the template had specified that one of
"NOT DEFERRABLE", "INITIALLY IMMEDIATE", or "INITIALLY DEFERRED"
was required on any CREATE TRIGGER statement, which is not
accurate. Change to square brackets makes that optional.
Backpatch to 9.1, where the error was introduced.
Any OS user able to access the socket can connect as the bootstrap
superuser and proceed to execute arbitrary code as the OS user running
the test. Protect against that by placing the socket in a temporary,
mode-0700 subdirectory of /tmp. The pg_regress-based test suites and
the pg_upgrade test suite were vulnerable; the $(prove_check)-based test
suites were already secure. Back-patch to 8.4 (all supported versions).
The hazard remains wherever the temporary cluster accepts TCP
connections, notably on Windows.
As a convenient side effect, this lets testing proceed smoothly in
builds that override DEFAULT_PGSOCKET_DIR. Popular non-default values
like /var/run/postgresql are often unwritable to the build user.
Security: CVE-2014-0067
Back in 8.3, we installed permissions checks in these functions (see
commits 8bc225e799 and cc26599b72). But we forgot to document that
anywhere in the user-facing docs; it did get mentioned in the 8.3 release
notes, but nobody's looking at that any more. Per gripe from Suya Huang.
The advice to join to pg_prepared_xacts via the transaction column was not
updated when the transaction column was replaced by virtualtransaction.
Since it's not quite obvious how to do that join, give an explicit example.
For consistency also give an example for the adjacent case of joining to
pg_stat_activity. And link-ify the view references too, just because we
can. Per bug #9840 from Alexey Bashtanov.
Michael Paquier and Tom Lane
It's been 16 bytes, not 12, for ages. This was fixed in passing in HEAD
(commit 146604ec), but as a factual error it should have been back-patched.
Per gripe from Tatsuhito Kasahara.
Any OS user able to access the socket can connect as the bootstrap
superuser and in turn execute arbitrary code as the OS user running the
test. Protect against that by placing the socket in the temporary data
directory, which has mode 0700 thanks to initdb. Back-patch to 8.4 (all
supported versions). The hazard remains wherever the temporary cluster
accepts TCP connections, notably on Windows.
Attempts to run "make check" from a directory with a long name will now
fail. An alternative not sharing that problem was to place the socket
in a subdirectory of /tmp, but that is only secure if /tmp is sticky.
The PG_REGRESS_SOCK_DIR environment variable is available as a
workaround when testing from long directory paths.
As a convenient side effect, this lets testing proceed smoothly in
builds that override DEFAULT_PGSOCKET_DIR. Popular non-default values
like /var/run/postgresql are often unwritable to the build user.
Security: CVE-2014-0067
This has been true for some time, but we were leaving users to discover it
the hard way.
Back-patch to 9.2. It might've been true before that, but we were claiming
Python 2.2 compatibility before that, so I won't guess at the exact
requirements back then.
Since the temporary server started by "make check" uses "trust"
authentication, another user on the same machine could connect to it
as database superuser, and then potentially exploit the privileges of
the operating-system user who started the tests. We should change
the testing procedures to prevent this risk; but discussion is required
about the best way to do that, as well as more testing than is practical
for an undisclosed security problem. Besides, the same issue probably
affects some user-written test harnesses. So for the moment, we'll just
warn people against using "make check" when there are untrusted users on
the same machine.
In passing, remove some ancient advice that suggested making the
regression testing subtree world-writable if you'd built as root.
That looks dangerously insecure in modern contexts, and anyway we
should not be encouraging people to build Postgres as root.
Security: CVE-2014-0067
The primary role of PL validators is to be called implicitly during
CREATE FUNCTION, but they are also normal functions that a user can call
explicitly. Add a permissions check to each validator to ensure that a
user cannot use explicit validator calls to achieve things he could not
otherwise achieve. Back-patch to 8.4 (all supported versions).
Non-core procedural language extensions ought to make the same two-line
change to their own validators.
Andres Freund, reviewed by Tom Lane and Noah Misch.
Security: CVE-2014-0061
Granting a role without ADMIN OPTION is supposed to prevent the grantee
from adding or removing members from the granted role. Issuing SET ROLE
before the GRANT bypassed that, because the role itself had an implicit
right to add or remove members. Plug that hole by recognizing that
implicit right only when the session user matches the current role.
Additionally, do not recognize it during a security-restricted operation
or during execution of a SECURITY DEFINER function. The restriction on
SECURITY DEFINER is not security-critical. However, it seems best for a
user testing his own SECURITY DEFINER function to see the same behavior
others will see. Back-patch to 8.4 (all supported versions).
The SQL standards do not conflate roles and users as PostgreSQL does;
only SQL roles have members, and only SQL users initiate sessions. An
application using PostgreSQL users and roles as SQL users and roles will
never attempt to grant membership in the role that is the session user,
so the implicit right to add or remove members will never arise.
The security impact was mostly that a role member could revoke access
from others, contrary to the wishes of his own grantor. Unapproved role
member additions are less notable, because the member can still largely
achieve that by creating a view or a SECURITY DEFINER function.
Reviewed by Andres Freund and Tom Lane. Reported, independently, by
Jonas Sundman and Noah Misch.
Security: CVE-2014-0060
This documentation never got the word about the existence of check-world or
installcheck-world. Revise to recommend use of those, and document all the
subsidiary test suites. Do some minor wordsmithing elsewhere, too.
In passing, remove markup related to generation of plain-text regression
test instructions, since we don't do that anymore.
Back-patch to 9.1 where check-world was added. (installcheck-world exists
in 9.0; but since check-world doesn't, this patch would need additional
work to cover that branch, and it doesn't seem worth the effort.)
The documentation suggested using "echo | psql", but not the often-superior
alternative of a here-document. Also, be more direct about suggesting
that people avoid -c for multiple commands. Per discussion.
We have a practice of providing a "bread crumb" trail between the minor
versions where the migration section actually tells you to do something.
Historically that was just plain text, eg, "see the release notes for
9.2.4"; but if you're using a browser or PDF reader, it's a lot nicer
if it's a live hyperlink. So use "<xref>" instead. Any argument against
doing this vanished with the recent decommissioning of plain-text release
notes.
Vik Fearing
Providing this information as plain text was doubtless worth the trouble
ten years ago, but it seems likely that hardly anyone reads it in this
format anymore. And the effort required to maintain these files (in the
form of extra-complex markup rules in the relevant parts of the SGML
documentation) is significant. So, let's stop doing that and rely solely
on the other documentation formats.
Per discussion, the plain-text INSTALL instructions might still be worth
their keep, so we continue to generate that file.
Rather than remove HISTORY and src/test/regress/README from distribution
tarballs entirely, replace them with simple stub files that tell the reader
where to find the relevant documentation. This is mainly to avoid possibly
breaking packaging recipes that expect these files to exist.
Back-patch to all supported branches, because simplifying the markup
requirements for release notes won't help much unless we do it in all
branches.
Primarily, explain where to find the system-wide psqlrc file, per recent
gripe from John Sutton. Do some general wordsmithing and improve the
markup, too.
Also adjust psqlrc.sample so its comments about file location are somewhat
trustworthy. (Not sure why we bother with this file when it's empty,
but whatever.)
Back-patch to 9.2 where the startup file naming scheme was last changed.
