On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:52 PM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Thomas Munro <thomas.mu...@enterprisedb.com> writes: > > On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 5:46 AM, Marco van Eck <marco.van...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Since .pgpass files contain plain-text passwords, I searched for an > >> alternative. > >> In the attached patch I've added the possibility to run a command to > produce > >> the content of the pgpass file, in exactly the same format. > > > ... Here you side step those questions completely and make that the end > > user's problem. I like it. > > ... but doesn't this just encourage people to build hacks that aren't > really any more secure than the unreadable-file approach? In fact, > I'm afraid this would be an attractive nuisance, in that people would > build one-off hacks that get no security vetting and don't really work. > > I'd like to see a concrete example of a use-case that really does add > security; preferably one short and useful enough to put into the docs > so that people might copy-and-paste it rather than rolling their own. > It seems possible that something of the sort could be built atop > ssh-agent or gpg-agent, for instance. > If the goal is not unattended operation but just unannoying operation, I think the first example he provided is already that use-case. If you already have gpg configured to use gpg-agent, then it just works. You get encryption-at-rest, and you don't have to type in your password repeatedly in the same continuous shell session. Cheers, Jeff
