> On Mar 21, 2017, at 3:03 PM, Tom Ekberg <tekberg@uw.edu> wrote:
>
> I have been working with MySQL a bit (yes, I know, heresy) and encountered a program called mysql_config_editor. In
myopinion it does a better job of local password management than using a ~/.pgpass file. Instead of assuming that a
modeof 600 will keep people from peeking at your password, it encrypts the password, but keeps the other parameters
likehost, port and user available for viewing as plaintext. You can read more about it here:
>
> https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysql-config-editor.html
>
> The host, user, password values are grouped into what are called login paths which are of the form:
>
> [some_login_path]
> host = localhost
> user = localuser
Looks rather like a postgresql service file. :)
>
> Just like the config files you have no doubt seen before. The only way to set a password is to use the command:
>
> mysql_config_editor set --login-path=some_login_path --password
>
> which will prompt the user to enter the password for the specified login path. The password is never seen as plain
text.There are other commands to set, remove, print and reset values for a login path. The print command that shows a
passwordwill display this instead:
>
> password = *****
This seems like it'd give people a false sense of security. If someone can read that file, they can log in to that
account.Obfuscating the password just makes naive users think they're secure when they're anything but, and means
they'reless likely to be careful about making that file unreadable and avoiding checking it into revision control and
soon. It'd protect against shoulder-surfing, but it's not like you're going to have .pg_pass open in an editor too
often.
A commandline tool for managing pgpass might be interesting, I guess. Though for local databases using peer
authenticationis likely better than saving passwords in a file.
> Adding a similar feature for PostgreSQL will also require a change to the psql program to specify and handle
--login-pathused for authentication. This may also be the case for some of the other pg_* utilities.
>
> I think adding a feature like mysql_config_editor to PostgreSQL is an easy way to set up multiple "personalities" for
connectingto different PostgreSQL servers. The password protection will deter the curious user from gaining access to
yourdata. It will not stop a determined hacker, but the idea is to make it more difficult.
>
> Other than this mailing list, is there a way to make a feature request for PostgreSQL?
Cheers,
Steve