NAME

gx-map db-config - The db-config file format used by gx-map


DESCRIPTION

A db-config file is a plain text file containing the information needed for the gx-propagate, gx-db-check-requests, and gx-db-dump commands to work with a database. This is TeraGrid-specific.

If the gx-map system is configured to work with the TGCDB (TeraGrid Central Database), then a dummy tgcdb.db-config file will be installed in the etc/gx-map directory. The fields must be filled in before gx-map can interact with the TGCDB.

This is a plain text file where each line contains an attribute name followed by the corresponding attribute value. Blank lines are ignored. Comments are introduced by the '#' character. Specific values for these attributes are not specified here; consult a TeraGrid administrator for the correct values.

Since this file contains a plain-text password, it must be kept secure; its permissions must be either 600 or 400.


ATTRIBUTES

This is a list of the attributes in a db-config file. All attributes are mandatory.

host
The host name of the database server.

port
The port number for the database server.

dbname
The database name.

resource_name
The resource name, used within the database to map user names to people and vice versa.

This may optionally be a wildcard, containing one or more '%' characters, matching a set of resource names. Each '%' matches 0 or more characters (like '*' in a Unix filename pattern). SQL wildcards other than '%', such as '_' (matching a single character), '^', or '$' (matching the start or end of a string, respectively), may not work correctly, and should be avoided.

Use a wildcard only if all matching resources are in the same NAMESPACE. A namespace, specified when gx-map is installed, is a consistent mapping of Unix user names to people. If a given Unix user name is guaranteed to belong to the same person on all systems within a site, then the site has a single namespace. If, for example, the Unix user name ``fred'' might belong to Fred Smith on foo.yoursite.edu, and to Fred Jones on bar.yoursite.edu, then you do not have a single namespace; you must have distinct, disjoint installations of gx-map on those two systems, and you should not use a wildcard in your resource_name.

user
The user name used to connect to the database. This is a PostgreSQL user name, not a Unix user nam e.

password
The password associated with the user name. Do not reveal this password.


SECURITY

As mentioned above, the tgcdb.db-config file must be kept secure. It must be owned by the owner of the gx-map installation (specified as OWNER_NAME in the installation configuration file), and its permissions must be either 600 or 400. If it has any other permissions, any programs that use it will refuse to run -- but by that time, it could be too late. The file, by necessity, contains a clear-text database password. An attacker with access to this file could add or remove information from the TGCDB, and possibly break into systems.


SEE ALSO

gx-map(8), gx-propagate(8), gx-db-check-requests(8), gx-db-dump


AUTHOR

Keith Thompson, San Diego Supercomputer Center, <kst@sdsc.edu>


COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

See the file LICENSE in the gx-map distribution, installed in the etc/gx-map subdirectory.