[ADMIN] Any user can create table in any database?

[KOOPMAN,JON (A-SantaClara,ex1)]

I'm running PostgreSQL 6.5.3 on HP-UX 10.20.

I've just noticed that I can connect to any database as any
valid user, and create new tables in any database as any user.
I don't believe this is correct operation, nor does it match
the documentation.

Is this a bug, or am I missing the boat?

In the documentation page:

http://www.posgresql.org/doxlist.html - Chapter 8. Security in
the first section I see:

"Each user in Postgres is assigned a username, and (optionally) a
password.  By default, users do not have write access to databases
they did not create."

However, if I create a user "user1", password "user1", that has no
privileges, but is the DBA for a database "user1":

% psql template1
...
 You are currently connected to the database: template1

template1=> create user "user1" with password "user1" nocreatedb
nocreateuser;
template1=> update pg_shadow set usetrace='f', usecatupd='f'
template1-> where usename='user1';
template1=> create database user1;
template1=> select usename,usesysid from pg_user;
usename|usesysid
-------+--------
pgsql  |    5432
user1  |    5433
(2 rows)

template1=> update pg_database set datdba=5433 where datname='user1';
template1=> select * from from pg_database;
datname  |datdba|encoding|datpath
---------+------+--------+---------
template1|  5432|       0|template1
user1    |  5433|       0|user1
(2 rows)

template1=> \q

Now if the documentation is correct, I believe as the DB user "user1"
I shouldn't be able to create tables or anything else in a database
for which I am not the database administrator.  Notice from the
select's above that the "user1" user is not the database admin for
the template1 database (good, regular database users shouldn't be
able to change the template for all new databases).  However if I do:

% psql -u template1
Username: user1
Password: user1
...
 You are currently connected to the database: template1

template1=> create table foo (yn bool);
template1=> \d
+------------------+------------------------------+---------+
|  Owner           |          Relation            |  Type   |
+------------------+------------------------------+---------+
| user1            | foo                          | table   |
+------------------+------------------------------+---------+

I don't think I should have been able to do that!
I just checked and the same feature/bug is also in the 6.4 release.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment,

Jon Koopman                         Agilent Technologies
[EMAIL PROTECTED]            R&D Software Development Engineer