diff --git a/docs/creation-of-nonsuperuser.md b/docs/creation-of-nonsuperuser.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a37e83e --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/creation-of-nonsuperuser.md @@ -0,0 +1,61 @@ +## Migrating existing superuser to a less privileged user + +Mattermost-docker used to use the initially created user while database initialization. This is being accomplished by using the +`POSTGRES_USER` environment variable of the PostgreSQL Docker image. While this is convinient because it requires less setup steps +it's best practice and desirable to us a less privileged user to connect to the database. The following steps should be safe and +executable while Mattermost is running. + +**NOTE:** Commands with a **$** prefix denote those are executed as user, **#** as root and commands without a prefix are database commands. +We assume the database name is *mattermost* and the database user *mmuser*. + +1. Find out the name or id of the PostgreSQL container +To get either the name or the id of the running PostgeSQL container we can use `$ sudo docker ps`. + +2. Attaching to the database container +`$ sudo docker exec -it POSTGRES_CONTAINER_NAME/ID /bin/sh` + +3. Connecting to the database +``` +# psql DATABASE_NAME USERNAME +e.g. +# psql mattermost mmuser +``` + +4. Checking if the Mattermost user is a superuser +The following PostgreSQL command will print a list of the present users and its attributes. +``` +\du +``` +A possible output can look like the following: + +``` + List of roles + Role name | Attributes | Member of +-----------+------------------------------------------------------------+----------- + mmuser | Superuser, Create role, Create DB, Replication, Bypass RLS | {} +``` + +5. Creating a new `superuser` and changing existing role attributes +**ATTENTION:** It's strongly recommended to create a database prior alteration. This can be done by stopping the database +and backup the PostgreSQL data path at filesystem level and/or to use `pg_dumpall`. For this attach to the running PostgreSQL +container described in step 2 and execute: +``` +pg_dump -U mmuser -d mattermost > /var/lib/postgresql/data/BACKUP_MATTERMOST.sql +``` +This dumps your *mattermost* database to the mounted directory, specified in the docker-compose.yml file. + +After your backup is done you can connect to the database (see step 3) and execute the following SQL queries: +``` +CREATE ROLE superuser WITH BYPASSRLS REPLICATION CREATEDB CREATEROLE SUPERUSER LOGIN PASSWORD 'superuser_passwd'; + +ALTER DATABASE mattermost OWNER TO superuser; +ALTER DATABASE postgres OWNER TO superuser; +ALTER DATABASE template0 OWNER TO superuser; +ALTER DATABASE template1 OWNER TO superuser; + +GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE mattermost to mmuser; + +ALTER ROLE mmuser NOBYPASSRLS NOREPLICATION NOCREATEDB NOCREATEROLE NOSUPERUSER; +``` + +Even though you can apply the changes in a non-downtime it's required to restart the containers. \ No newline at end of file