17fe2793ea
An oversight in commit e710b65c1c56ca7b91f662c63d37ff2e72862a94 allowed database names beginning with "-" to be treated as though they were secure command-line switches; and this switch processing occurs before client authentication, so that even an unprivileged remote attacker could exploit the bug, needing only connectivity to the postmaster's port. Assorted exploits for this are possible, some requiring a valid database login, some not. The worst known problem is that the "-r" switch can be invoked to redirect the process's stderr output, so that subsequent error messages will be appended to any file the server can write. This can for example be used to corrupt the server's configuration files, so that it will fail when next restarted. Complete destruction of database tables is also possible. Fix by keeping the database name extracted from a startup packet fully separate from command-line switches, as had already been done with the user name field. The Postgres project thanks Mitsumasa Kondo for discovering this bug, Kyotaro Horiguchi for drafting the fix, and Noah Misch for recognizing the full extent of the danger. Security: CVE-2013-1899
PostgreSQL Database Management System ===================================== This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL database management system. PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions. This distribution also contains C language bindings. PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here: http://www.postgresql.org/download See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install PostgreSQL. That file also lists supported operating systems and hardware platforms and contains information regarding any other software packages that are required to build or run the PostgreSQL system. Changes between all PostgreSQL releases are recorded in the file HISTORY. Copyright and license information can be found in the file COPYRIGHT. A comprehensive documentation set is included in this distribution; it can be read as described in the installation instructions. The latest version of this software may be obtained at http://www.postgresql.org/download/. For more information look at our web site located at http://www.postgresql.org/.