PG_PWD and PG_PASSWORD Security
Hi,
When I 'CREATE USER testuser WITH PASSWORD 'mypassword';
I see an entry in PG_PWD with the password 'mypassword' in plaintext.
In my pg_hba.conf I have all hosts using 'password' authentication with no
file argument. Is there any way to keep postgres from saving the passwords
in plain text? This seems to be a huge security hole. I thought that passwords were to be saved in PG_SHADOW. What is
PG_SHADOW for anyway?
If you have an answer, can you please cc: my email?
Thanks.
--tony
postgresql 7.0.3
Anthony Metzidis writes:
Is there any way to keep postgres from saving the passwords in plain
text?
No.
This seems to be a huge security hole.
No, because the directory that contains these files shouldn't be world
readable. The issue has been noted though, but no one has implemented a
better solution yet.
I thought that passwords were to be saved in PG_SHADOW. What is
PG_SHADOW for anyway?
Pg_shadow is the system catalog table that stores the user information,
such as user name and password. The pg_pwd file is a plain text dump of
pg_shadow, which is necessary because at the time the password is needed
(during the connection attempt), the system can't read the pg_shadow table
yet (because it's not connected yet, sort of).
--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net http://yi.org/peter-e/