[ HOW TO DISABLE MASTER PASSWORD feature in pgAdmin4 ]

Vladimir,

I sympathize with you.  I have had some extensive discussions with the head
developer, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be something that he is willing
to address.  It's built to address a *remote* threat vector, one that the
vast majority of users would not be susceptible to, nor would they agree
that the minimal additional security provided warrants the lost time and
inconvenience that having it entails.  Since he believes so strongly in
this, it is set to a default of being on and not only is the setting *not*
exposed in the configuration UI, but it makes use of a non-existent file in
a location that typically only administrators have access to.  Since many
(most) users who will be using this in desktop mode already have these
permissions, all it does is force them to either; use a stupidly simple
master password (a single space is sufficient), or research the
byzantine instructions to create a config_local.py file with the magic
line; "MASTER_PASSWORD_REQUIRED=False" .  It doesn't help that the official
documentation located here
https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/pgadmin4/5.0/config_py.html, gives a location
for config_system.py.  It usually doesn't exist and more importantly is
**not** the location where the config.py, config_distro.py, or the all
important config_local.py (that you need to create to disable the MASTER
PASSWORD feature) resides.  Of course, upgrading from pgAdmin4 4.x to
pgAdmin4 5.0 re-enables the MASTER PASSWORD feature (⋋▂⋌).

So, until the devs either; add the option to control the MASTER PASSWORD
feature into the config UI where it belongs, or change things, here are the
steps to disable it.

   1. Make sure pgAdmin4 is not running (if you are using pre-version 5,
   make sure it isn't running in the tray)
   2. Locate the pgadmin4 *config.py* file (it will be in a *web*
   sub-directory parallel to the directory containing the executable)
   3. Create a file named *config_local.py* in the same directory as the
   config.py file (you will probably need admin or equivalent permissions)
   4. Enter the line: MASTER_PASSWORD_REQUIRED=False into that file and save
   5. Start pgAdmin4 and enjoy your MASTER PASSWORD free life

I hope that helps anyone else still struggling with this.

rik.

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 5:47 AM Vladimir Nicolici <vla...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Apparently, some parts of the message were lost when posting it through
> postgresql-archive.org, so I attached a PDF version of my previous
> message which includes the missing sections. Sorry about that.
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
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