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#1 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 10:48 PM

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> >> My proposal would be to continue to accept the option but just ignore it
> >> (ie, error out on version mismatch whether or not -i is given). This
> >> way we wouldn't break any scripts that use the option, but things would
> >> still be safe.
>
> > A larger question is why the option was added in the first place.
>
> It probably seemed like the conservative choice at the time: allow the
> user to be smarter than pg_dump when necessary. What we couldn't have
> foreseen was the way the option has been abused by tools that are not as
> bright as they think they are. With the current situation where -i is
> used by default, without the user's knowledge (and without showing him
> the warning messages, which is why your patch isn't going to improve
> matters), it just seems too dangerous to continue to accept the switch.
>
> (I wonder whether some of the complaints we've seen about broken
> dump/restore are courtesy of pgAdmin forcing the dump to be taken with
> a too-old copy of pg_dump.)

Agreed, but I thought the tools have been fixed so is this still a
problem?

> One point after looking back at the previous discussion is that the
> current version test is too strict: it will complain if your server is
> 8.2.7 and pg_dump is 8.2.6. We probably should not make a newer minor
> number a hard error, since 99.99% of the time it would be fine. So
> while I think newer major should be a hard error regardless of -i,
> we could consider several responses to newer minor:
> * silently allow it always
> * print warning and proceed always
> * allow -i to control error vs warning for this case only.

I think it should be silent. Do we ever change the server behavior that
is visible to pg_dump in a minor release?

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Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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#2 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 10:48 PM

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> One point after looking back at the previous discussion is that the
>> current version test is too strict: it will complain if your server is
>> 8.2.7 and pg_dump is 8.2.6. We probably should not make a newer minor
>> number a hard error, since 99.99% of the time it would be fine. So
>> while I think newer major should be a hard error regardless of -i,
>> we could consider several responses to newer minor:
>> * silently allow it always
>> * print warning and proceed always
>> * allow -i to control error vs warning for this case only.

> I think it should be silent. Do we ever change the server behavior that
> is visible to pg_dump in a minor release?

It's hardly out of the question --- consider the backslash-escaping
security fixes we applied in 8.1.4, 8.0.8, etc. Parts of the server
changes were intended to intentionally break unpatched clients, and
I think that'd apply to unpatched pg_dump as well.

Of course, that precedent suggests that any such change would be made in
such a way as to be enforced on the server side, so it wouldn't matter
if pg_dump didn't know it wouldn't work.

Silent allow is fine with me, I was just wondering if anyone liked
the other options better.

regards, tom lane

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#3 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 10:52 PM

I wrote:
> Silent allow is fine with me, I was just wondering if anyone liked
> the other options better.

Okay, I'm back on the warpath about this after noting yet another user
who thinks he should use -i mindlessly:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql...4/msg00111.php

I believe the consensus was

* pg_dump and pg_restore should continue to accept -i/--ignore-version
options, to avoid needlessly breaking existing scripts, but these
switches will become no-ops; the version check will occur anyway.

* pg_dump should be fixed to allow server minor version greater than its
own, but not server major version.

Last chance for objections...

regards, tom lane

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#4 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 10:52 PM

Tom Lane wrote:

> I believe the consensus was
>
> * pg_dump and pg_restore should continue to accept -i/--ignore-version
> options, to avoid needlessly breaking existing scripts, but these
> switches will become no-ops; the version check will occur anyway.
>
> * pg_dump should be fixed to allow server minor version greater than its
> own, but not server major version.
>
> Last chance for objections...

None here.

Joshua D. Drake

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Re: Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Strengthen warningsabout using pg_dump's -i option.