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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>41.5. 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 Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="rules-update.html" title="41.4. Rules on INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE" /><link rel="next" href="rules-status.html" title="41.6. Rules and Command Status" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">41.5. Rules and Privileges</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="rules-update.html" title="41.4. Rules on INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="rules.html" title="Chapter 41. The Rule System">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 41. The Rule System</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 16.3 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="rules-status.html" title="41.6. Rules and Command Status">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" id="RULES-PRIVILEGES"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">41.5. Rules and Privileges <a href="#RULES-PRIVILEGES" class="id_link">#</a></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. With the exception of
<code class="literal">SELECT</code> rules associated with security invoker views
(see <a class="link" href="sql-createview.html" title="CREATE VIEW"><code class="command">CREATE VIEW</code></a>),
all 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, except for security invoker views, 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.
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