Re: Proof of concept: standalone backend with full FE/BE protocol

On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:54 PM, Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 8:14 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>> Here what I have in mind is that:
>>
>> Why would you make psql behave differently from our other command-line
>> clients?
>
> No, psql should not behave different from other clients. Sorry, I
> was under assumption that for other programs we will not take backend
> executable
> path.
> One other thing which is not clear to me is that how by calling
> some special/new API we can ensure that the path provided by user is
> a valid path, are we going to validate file given in
> 'standalone_backend' switch in some way?

Here, do we mean that if user specifies special switch, then
psql/pg_dump will call new API (eg. PQstartSingleUser(dsn)) which
will use postgres from same bin directory they are in, rather than
using from standalone_backend.
Can we consider this as a way to proceed for this patch?

On a side note, today while reading what other software's does to
protect them from such a security threat, I came across this link
(http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter7/binaryprotection/index.html)
which suggests to have encrypted binaries. The use for encrypted
binaries is somewhat similar to what we discussed as a security threat
in this mail thread. Some text from link which made me think that
this is relevant.
For example, "one could turn the requirement around and say that a
given system must not run any binaries unless they are from a
certain source (or set of sources). This could be used to create an
admission-control mechanism for executables, which in turn could
be used in defending against malware. In a draconian managed
environment, it might be desired to limit program execution on managed
systems to a predefined set of programs—nothing else will execute."

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com