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- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>40.5. Rules and Privileges</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="prev" href="rules-update.html" title="40.4. Rules on INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE" /><link rel="next" href="rules-status.html" title="40.6. Rules and Command Status" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">40.5. Rules and Privileges</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="rules-update.html" title="40.4. Rules on INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="rules.html" title="Chapter 40. The Rule System">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 40. The Rule System</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 12.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="rules-status.html" title="40.6. Rules and Command Status">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="sect1" id="RULES-PRIVILEGES"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">40.5. Rules and Privileges</h2></div></div></div><a id="id-1.8.6.10.2" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.8.6.10.3" class="indexterm"></a><p>
- Due to rewriting of queries by the <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
- rule system, other tables/views than those used in the original
- query get accessed. When update rules are used, this can include write access
- to tables.
- </p><p>
- Rewrite rules don't have a separate owner. The owner of
- a relation (table or view) is automatically the owner of the
- rewrite rules that are defined for it.
- The <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> rule system changes the
- behavior of the default access control system. Relations that
- are used due to rules get checked against the
- privileges of the rule owner, not the user invoking the rule.
- This means that users only need the required privileges
- for the tables/views that are explicitly named in their queries.
- </p><p>
- For example: A user has a list of phone numbers where some of
- them are private, the others are of interest for the assistant of the office.
- The user can construct the following:
-
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- CREATE TABLE phone_data (person text, phone text, private boolean);
- CREATE VIEW phone_number AS
- SELECT person, CASE WHEN NOT private THEN phone END AS phone
- FROM phone_data;
- GRANT SELECT ON phone_number TO assistant;
- </pre><p>
-
- Nobody except that user (and the database superusers) can access the
- <code class="literal">phone_data</code> table. But because of the <code class="command">GRANT</code>,
- the assistant can run a <code class="command">SELECT</code> on the
- <code class="literal">phone_number</code> view. The rule system will rewrite the
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> from <code class="literal">phone_number</code> into a
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> from <code class="literal">phone_data</code>.
- Since the user is the owner of
- <code class="literal">phone_number</code> and therefore the owner of the rule, the
- read access to <code class="literal">phone_data</code> is now checked against the user's
- privileges and the query is permitted. The check for accessing
- <code class="literal">phone_number</code> is also performed, but this is done
- against the invoking user, so nobody but the user and the
- assistant can use it.
- </p><p>
- The privileges are checked rule by rule. So the assistant is for now the
- only one who can see the public phone numbers. But the assistant can set up
- another view and grant access to that to the public. Then, anyone
- can see the <code class="literal">phone_number</code> data through the assistant's view.
- What the assistant cannot do is to create a view that directly
- accesses <code class="literal">phone_data</code>. (Actually the assistant can, but it will not work since
- every access will be denied during the permission checks.)
- And as soon as the user notices that the assistant opened
- their <code class="literal">phone_number</code> view, the user can revoke the assistant's access. Immediately, any
- access to the assistant's view would fail.
- </p><p>
- One might think that this rule-by-rule checking is a security
- hole, but in fact it isn't. But if it did not work this way, the assistant
- could set up a table with the same columns as <code class="literal">phone_number</code> and
- copy the data to there once per day. Then it's the assistant's own data and
- the assistant can grant access to everyone they want. A
- <code class="command">GRANT</code> command means, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">I trust you</span>”</span>.
- If someone you trust does the thing above, it's time to
- think it over and then use <code class="command">REVOKE</code>.
- </p><p>
- Note that while views can be used to hide the contents of certain
- columns using the technique shown above, they cannot be used to reliably
- conceal the data in unseen rows unless the
- <code class="literal">security_barrier</code> flag has been set. For example,
- the following view is insecure:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- CREATE VIEW phone_number AS
- SELECT person, phone FROM phone_data WHERE phone NOT LIKE '412%';
- </pre><p>
- This view might seem secure, since the rule system will rewrite any
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> from <code class="literal">phone_number</code> into a
- <code class="command">SELECT</code> from <code class="literal">phone_data</code> and add the
- qualification that only entries where <code class="literal">phone</code> does not begin
- with 412 are wanted. But if the user can create their own functions,
- it is not difficult to convince the planner to execute the user-defined
- function prior to the <code class="function">NOT LIKE</code> expression.
- For example:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- CREATE FUNCTION tricky(text, text) RETURNS bool AS $$
- BEGIN
- RAISE NOTICE '% => %', $1, $2;
- RETURN true;
- END
- $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql COST 0.0000000000000000000001;
-
- SELECT * FROM phone_number WHERE tricky(person, phone);
- </pre><p>
- Every person and phone number in the <code class="literal">phone_data</code> table will be
- printed as a <code class="literal">NOTICE</code>, because the planner will choose to
- execute the inexpensive <code class="function">tricky</code> function before the
- more expensive <code class="function">NOT LIKE</code>. Even if the user is
- prevented from defining new functions, built-in functions can be used in
- similar attacks. (For example, most casting functions include their
- input values in the error messages they produce.)
- </p><p>
- Similar considerations apply to update rules. In the examples of
- the previous section, the owner of the tables in the example
- database could grant the privileges <code class="literal">SELECT</code>,
- <code class="literal">INSERT</code>, <code class="literal">UPDATE</code>, and <code class="literal">DELETE</code> on
- the <code class="literal">shoelace</code> view to someone else, but only
- <code class="literal">SELECT</code> on <code class="literal">shoelace_log</code>. The rule action to
- write log entries will still be executed successfully, and that
- other user could see the log entries. But they could not create fake
- entries, nor could they manipulate or remove existing ones. In this
- case, there is no possibility of subverting the rules by convincing
- the planner to alter the order of operations, because the only rule
- which references <code class="literal">shoelace_log</code> is an unqualified
- <code class="literal">INSERT</code>. This might not be true in more complex scenarios.
- </p><p>
- When it is necessary for a view to provide row level security, the
- <code class="literal">security_barrier</code> attribute should be applied to
- the view. This prevents maliciously-chosen functions and operators from
- being passed values from rows until after the view has done its work. For
- example, if the view shown above had been created like this, it would
- be secure:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- CREATE VIEW phone_number WITH (security_barrier) AS
- SELECT person, phone FROM phone_data WHERE phone NOT LIKE '412%';
- </pre><p>
- Views created with the <code class="literal">security_barrier</code> may perform
- far worse than views created without this option. In general, there is
- no way to avoid this: the fastest possible plan must be rejected
- if it may compromise security. For this reason, this option is not
- enabled by default.
- </p><p>
- The query planner has more flexibility when dealing with functions that
- have no side effects. Such functions are referred to as <code class="literal">LEAKPROOF</code>, and
- include many simple, commonly used operators, such as many equality
- operators. The query planner can safely allow such functions to be evaluated
- at any point in the query execution process, since invoking them on rows
- invisible to the user will not leak any information about the unseen rows.
- Further, functions which do not take arguments or which are not passed any
- arguments from the security barrier view do not have to be marked as
- <code class="literal">LEAKPROOF</code> to be pushed down, as they never receive data
- from the view. In contrast, a function that might throw an error depending
- on the values received as arguments (such as one that throws an error in the
- event of overflow or division by zero) is not leak-proof, and could provide
- significant information about the unseen rows if applied before the security
- view's row filters.
- </p><p>
- It is important to understand that even a view created with the
- <code class="literal">security_barrier</code> option is intended to be secure only
- in the limited sense that the contents of the invisible tuples will not be
- passed to possibly-insecure functions. The user may well have other means
- of making inferences about the unseen data; for example, they can see the
- query plan using <code class="command">EXPLAIN</code>, or measure the run time of
- queries against the view. A malicious attacker might be able to infer
- something about the amount of unseen data, or even gain some information
- about the data distribution or most common values (since these things may
- affect the run time of the plan; or even, since they are also reflected in
- the optimizer statistics, the choice of plan). If these types of "covert
- channel" attacks are of concern, it is probably unwise to grant any access
- to the data at all.
- </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="rules-update.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="rules.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="rules-status.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">40.4. Rules on <code class="command">INSERT</code>, <code class="command">UPDATE</code>, and <code class="command">DELETE</code> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 40.6. Rules and Command Status</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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