On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 13:36 -0500, Merlin Moncure wrote: > However, I still maintain that views are the perfect security mechanism > for system catalogs. Imagine that all the system catalogs were all > views, and could be redefined or even dropped by the dba. They would > present exactly the same stuff they do now, with rules presenting them > just like the original table.
> Now, for extreme situations like that government server that requires > catalog security, the dba can redefine the various rules for the catalog > views and lock various things down, using whatever methodology he/she > sees fit. This would not affect the internal workings of the server but > would affect the client tools, which is really what I'm after. Configurable security? Sounds great to me. This is exactly how Teradata implements this; they even present you with a choice of views to load ontop of the catalog tables. Secure/Not. You choose. ...but in this case: > ( A possible variant: the function body stays in prosrc, > but > > is encrypted.) That sounds OK for this situation. Doesn't it Merlin? That would open up the market for pay-for add-ons to PostgreSQL. It would also encourage packaged app vendors to port their code to PostgreSQL, in the knowledge that their source code would be secure. [Dont jump on my case... not everybody thinks open source is cool enough to actually do it themselves... and I accept their position] Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly