{"id":17172,"date":"2022-04-12T12:14:09","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\/"},"modified":"2022-04-12T12:14:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T10:14:09","slug":"postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\/","title":{"rendered":"PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another nice feature just made it into PostgreSQL 15: You can now control who is allowed to set specific parameters. This gives you a lot more flexibility, especially when you are hosting PostgreSQL instances for your customers. You can delegate more control to trusted users or roles and of course, you can also revoke it later on when it is not anymore required. One goal of this is to reduce the number of tasks which require superuser privileges. As always, lets do a simple example to highlight how you might use it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To start with, we create a new user and connect with it:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# create user u with login password 'u';\nCREATE ROLE\npostgres=# c postgres u\nYou are now connected to database \"postgres\" as user \"u\".\n<\/pre>\n<p>Which parameters is this user allowed to set? Nothing on the instance and database level:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=&gt; alter system set work_mem='12MB';\nERROR:  permission denied to set parameter \"work_mem\"\npostgres=&gt; alter database postgres set work_mem='12MB';\nERROR:  must be owner of database postgres\n<\/pre>\n<p>Of course the user can set a new value for himself (either permanently or in the session):<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=&gt; alter user u set work_mem='12MB';\nALTER ROLE\npostgres=&gt; set work_mem='10MB';\nSET\n<\/pre>\n<p>This works for all parameters that have a context of &#8220;user&#8221; in pg_settings:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=&gt; select name,context from pg_settings where context = 'user' order by 1;\n                name                 | context \n-------------------------------------+---------\n application_name                    | user\n array_nulls                         | user\n backend_flush_after                 | user\n backslash_quote                     | user\n bytea_output                        | user\n check_function_bodies               | user\n client_connection_check_interval    | user\n client_encoding                     | user\n client_min_messages                 | user\n commit_siblings                     | user\n constraint_exclusion                | user\n cpu_index_tuple_cost                | user\n cpu_operator_cost                   | user\n cpu_tuple_cost                      | user\n cursor_tuple_fraction               | user\n DateStyle                           | user\n debug_pretty_print                  | user\n debug_print_parse                   | user\n...\n vacuum_cost_limit                   | user\n vacuum_cost_page_dirty              | user\n vacuum_cost_page_hit                | user\n vacuum_cost_page_miss               | user\n vacuum_failsafe_age                 | user\n vacuum_freeze_min_age               | user\n vacuum_freeze_table_age             | user\n vacuum_multixact_failsafe_age       | user\n vacuum_multixact_freeze_min_age     | user\n vacuum_multixact_freeze_table_age   | user\n wal_sender_timeout                  | user\n wal_skip_threshold                  | user\n work_mem                            | user\n xmlbinary                           | user\n xmloption                           | user\n(136 rows)\n<\/pre>\n<p>For all the other parameters it does not work:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=&gt; select name,context from pg_settings where context != 'user' order by 1;\n                  name                  |      context      \n----------------------------------------+-------------------\n allow_in_place_tablespaces             | superuser\n allow_system_table_mods                | superuser\n archive_cleanup_command                | sighup\n archive_command                        | sighup\n archive_library                        | sighup\n archive_mode                           | postmaster\n archive_timeout                        | sighup\n authentication_timeout                 | sighup\n...\n wal_sync_method                        | sighup\n wal_writer_delay                       | sighup\n wal_writer_flush_after                 | sighup\n zero_damaged_pages                     | superuser\n(202 rows)\npostgres=&gt; set track_counts='on';\nERROR:  permission denied to set parameter \"track_counts\"\npostgres=&gt; \n<\/pre>\n<p>These times are now over: From PostgreSQL 15 on you can grant setting specific parameters to users or roles:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# select current_user;\n current_user \n--------------\n postgres\n(1 row)\npostgres=# grant set on parameter track_counts to u;\nGRANT\npostgres=# c postgres u\nYou are now connected to database \"postgres\" as user \"u\".\npostgres=&gt; set track_counts = 'on';\nSET\npostgres=&gt; \n<\/pre>\n<p>This also works on the instance level:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# grant alter system on parameter shared_buffers to u;\nGRANT\npostgres=# c postgres u\nYou are now connected to database \"postgres\" as user \"u\".\npostgres=&gt; alter system set shared_buffers = '129MB';\nALTER SYSTEM\npostgres=&gt; \n<\/pre>\n<p>A new catalog view comes alongside which lists all the grants for parameters:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=&gt; c postgres\nYou are now connected to database \"postgres\" as user \"u\".\npostgres=&gt; select * from pg_parameter_acl;\n  oid  |    parname     |               paracl                \n-------+----------------+-------------------------------------\n 16392 | track_counts   | {postgres=sA\/postgres,u=s\/postgres}\n 16393 | wal_level      | {postgres=sA\/postgres,u=s\/postgres}\n 16394 | shared_buffers | {postgres=sA\/postgres,u=A\/postgres}\n(3 rows)\n<\/pre>\n<p>Nice, thanks to all involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another nice feature just made it into PostgreSQL 15: You can now control who is allowed to set specific parameters. This gives you a lot more flexibility, especially when you are hosting PostgreSQL instances for your customers. You can delegate more control to trusted users or roles and of course, you can also revoke it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[77],"type_dbi":[],"class_list":["post-17172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database-administration-monitoring","tag-postgresql"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters - dbi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Another nice feature just made it into PostgreSQL 15: You can now control who is allowed to set specific parameters. This gives you a lot more flexibility, especially when you are hosting PostgreSQL instances for your customers. You can delegate more control to trusted users or roles and of course, you can also revoke it [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"dbi Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-12T10:14:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniel Westermann\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@westermanndanie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Westermann\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Westermann\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8d08e9bd996a89bd75c0286cbabf3c66\"},\"headline\":\"PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-12T10:14:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":207,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"PostgreSQL\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Database Administration &amp; Monitoring\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/\",\"name\":\"PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters - dbi Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-12T10:14:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8d08e9bd996a89bd75c0286cbabf3c66\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/postgresql-15-more-flexibility-with-setting-parameters\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Accueil\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"PostgreSQL 15: More flexibility with setting parameters\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"dbi Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8d08e9bd996a89bd75c0286cbabf3c66\",\"name\":\"Daniel Westermann\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/31350ceeecb1dd8986339a29bf040d4cd3cd087d410deccd8f55234466d6c317?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/31350ceeecb1dd8986339a29bf040d4cd3cd087d410deccd8f55234466d6c317?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/31350ceeecb1dd8986339a29bf040d4cd3cd087d410deccd8f55234466d6c317?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Daniel Westermann\"},\"description\":\"Daniel Westermann is Principal Consultant and Technology Leader Open Infrastructure at dbi services. He has more than 15 years of experience in management, engineering and optimization of databases and infrastructures, especially on Oracle and PostgreSQL. Since the beginning of his career, he has specialized in Oracle Technologies and is Oracle Certified Professional 12c and Oracle Certified Expert RAC\\\/GridInfra. Over time, Daniel has become increasingly interested in open source technologies, becoming \u201cTechnology Leader Open Infrastructure\u201d and PostgreSQL expert. \u00a0Based on community or EnterpriseDB tools, he develops and installs complex high available solutions with PostgreSQL. He is also a certified PostgreSQL Plus 9.0 Professional and a Postgres Advanced Server 9.4 Professional. He is a regular speaker at PostgreSQL conferences in Switzerland and Europe. Today Daniel is also supporting our customers on AWS services such as AWS RDS, database migrations into the cloud, EC2 and automated infrastructure management with AWS SSM (System Manager). He is a certified AWS Solutions Architect Professional. Prior to dbi services, Daniel was Management System Engineer at LC SYSTEMS-Engineering AG in Basel. Before that, he worked as Oracle Developper &amp;\u00a0Project Manager at Delta Energy Solutions AG in Basel (today Powel AG). Daniel holds a diploma in Business Informatics (DHBW, Germany). 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He has more than 15 years of experience in management, engineering and optimization of databases and infrastructures, especially on Oracle and PostgreSQL. Since the beginning of his career, he has specialized in Oracle Technologies and is Oracle Certified Professional 12c and Oracle Certified Expert RAC\/GridInfra. Over time, Daniel has become increasingly interested in open source technologies, becoming \u201cTechnology Leader Open Infrastructure\u201d and PostgreSQL expert. \u00a0Based on community or EnterpriseDB tools, he develops and installs complex high available solutions with PostgreSQL. He is also a certified PostgreSQL Plus 9.0 Professional and a Postgres Advanced Server 9.4 Professional. He is a regular speaker at PostgreSQL conferences in Switzerland and Europe. Today Daniel is also supporting our customers on AWS services such as AWS RDS, database migrations into the cloud, EC2 and automated infrastructure management with AWS SSM (System Manager). He is a certified AWS Solutions Architect Professional. Prior to dbi services, Daniel was Management System Engineer at LC SYSTEMS-Engineering AG in Basel. Before that, he worked as Oracle Developper &amp;\u00a0Project Manager at Delta Energy Solutions AG in Basel (today Powel AG). Daniel holds a diploma in Business Informatics (DHBW, Germany). His branch-related experience mainly covers the pharma industry, the financial sector, energy, lottery and telecommunications.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/westermanndanie"],"url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/author\/daniel-westermann\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17172"},{"taxonomy":"type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_dbi?post=17172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}