Name
CREATE ROLE -- define a new database roleSynopsis
CREATE ROLE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ] where option can be: SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE | INHERIT | NOINHERIT | LOGIN | NOLOGIN | REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION | BYPASSRLS | NOBYPASSRLS | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit | [ ENCRYPTED | UNENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password' | VALID UNTIL 'timestamp' | IN ROLE role_name [, ...] | IN GROUP role_name [, ...] | ROLE role_name [, ...] | ADMIN role_name [, ...] | USER role_name [, ...] | SYSID uid
Description
CREATE ROLE
adds a new role to a PostgreSQL database cluster. A role is an entity that can own database objects and have database privileges; a role can be considered a "user", a "group", or both depending on how it is used. Refer to Chapter 21 and Chapter 20 for information about managing users and authentication. You must have CREATEROLE
privilege or be a database superuser to use this command.
Note that roles are defined at the database cluster level, and so are valid in all databases in the cluster.
Parameters
name
-
The name of the new role.
-
SUPERUSER
NOSUPERUSER
-
These clauses determine whether the new role is a "superuser", who can override all access restrictions within the database. Superuser status is dangerous and should be used only when really needed. You must yourself be a superuser to create a new superuser. If not specified,
NOSUPERUSER
is the default. -
CREATEDB
NOCREATEDB
-
These clauses define a role's ability to create databases. If
CREATEDB
is specified, the role being defined will be allowed to create new databases. SpecifyingNOCREATEDB
will deny a role the ability to create databases. If not specified,NOCREATEDB
is the default. -
CREATEROLE
NOCREATEROLE
-
These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create new roles (that is, execute
CREATE ROLE
). A role withCREATEROLE
privilege can also alter and drop other roles. If not specified,NOCREATEROLE
is the default. -
INHERIT
NOINHERIT
-
These clauses determine whether a role "inherits" the privileges of roles it is a member of. A role with the
INHERIT
attribute can automatically use whatever database privileges have been granted to all roles it is directly or indirectly a member of. WithoutINHERIT
, membership in another role only grants the ability toSET ROLE
to that other role; the privileges of the other role are only available after having done so. If not specified,INHERIT
is the default. -
LOGIN
NOLOGIN
-
These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to log in; that is, whether the role can be given as the initial session authorization name during client connection. A role having the
LOGIN
attribute can be thought of as a user. Roles without this attribute are useful for managing database privileges, but are not users in the usual sense of the word. If not specified,NOLOGIN
is the default, except whenCREATE ROLE
is invoked through its alternative spelling CREATE USER. -
REPLICATION
NOREPLICATION
-
These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to initiate streaming replication or put the system in and out of backup mode. A role having the
REPLICATION
attribute is a very highly privileged role, and should only be used on roles actually used for replication. If not specified,NOREPLICATION
is the default. -
BYPASSRLS
NOBYPASSRLS
-
These clauses determine whether a role bypasses every row-level security (RLS) policy.
NOBYPASSRLS
is the default. Note that pg_dump will setrow_security
toOFF
by default, to ensure all contents of a table are dumped out. If the user running pg_dump does not have appropriate permissions, an error will be returned. The superuser and owner of the table being dumped always bypass RLS. -
CONNECTION LIMIT
connlimit
-
If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections the role can make. -1 (the default) means no limit.
-
PASSWORD
password
-
Sets the role's password. (A password is only of use for roles having the
LOGIN
attribute, but you can nonetheless define one for roles without it.) If you do not plan to use password authentication you can omit this option. If no password is specified, the password will be set to null and password authentication will always fail for that user. A null password can optionally be written explicitly asPASSWORD NULL
. -
ENCRYPTED
UNENCRYPTED
-
These key words control whether the password is stored encrypted in the system catalogs. (If neither is specified, the default behavior is determined by the configuration parameter password_encryption.) If the presented password string is already in MD5-encrypted format, then it is stored encrypted as-is, regardless of whether
ENCRYPTED
orUNENCRYPTED
is specified (since the system cannot decrypt the specified encrypted password string). This allows reloading of encrypted passwords during dump/restore.Note that older clients might lack support for the MD5 authentication mechanism that is needed to work with passwords that are stored encrypted.
-
VALID UNTIL
'timestamp
' -
The
VALID UNTIL
clause sets a date and time after which the role's password is no longer valid. If this clause is omitted the password will be valid for all time. -
IN ROLE
role_name
-
The
IN ROLE
clause lists one or more existing roles to which the new role will be immediately added as a new member. (Note that there is no option to add the new role as an administrator; use a separateGRANT
command to do that.) -
IN GROUP
role_name
-
IN GROUP
is an obsolete spelling ofIN ROLE
. -
ROLE
role_name
-
The
ROLE
clause lists one or more existing roles which are automatically added as members of the new role. (This in effect makes the new role a "group".) -
ADMIN
role_name
-
The
ADMIN
clause is likeROLE
, but the named roles are added to the new roleWITH ADMIN OPTION
, giving them the right to grant membership in this role to others. -
USER
role_name
-
The
USER
clause is an obsolete spelling of theROLE
clause. -
SYSID
uid
-
The
SYSID
clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards compatibility.
Notes
Use ALTER ROLE to change the attributes of a role, and DROP ROLE to remove a role. All the attributes specified by CREATE ROLE
can be modified by later ALTER ROLE
commands.
The preferred way to add and remove members of roles that are being used as groups is to use GRANT and REVOKE.
The VALID UNTIL
clause defines an expiration time for a password only, not for the role per se. In particular, the expiration time is not enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication method.
The INHERIT
attribute governs inheritance of grantable privileges (that is, access privileges for database objects and role memberships). It does not apply to the special role attributes set by CREATE ROLE
and ALTER ROLE
. For example, being a member of a role with CREATEDB
privilege does not immediately grant the ability to create databases, even if INHERIT
is set; it would be necessary to become that role via SET ROLE before creating a database.
The INHERIT
attribute is the default for reasons of backwards compatibility: in prior releases of PostgreSQL, users always had access to all privileges of groups they were members of. However, NOINHERIT
provides a closer match to the semantics specified in the SQL standard.
Be careful with the CREATEROLE
privilege. There is no concept of inheritance for the privileges of a CREATEROLE
-role. That means that even if a role does not have a certain privilege but is allowed to create other roles, it can easily create another role with different privileges than its own (except for creating roles with superuser privileges). For example, if the role "user" has the CREATEROLE
privilege but not the CREATEDB
privilege, nonetheless it can create a new role with the CREATEDB
privilege. Therefore, regard roles that have the CREATEROLE
privilege as almost-superuser-roles.
PostgreSQL includes a program createuser that has the same functionality as CREATE ROLE
(in fact, it calls this command) but can be run from the command shell.
The CONNECTION LIMIT
option is only enforced approximately; if two new sessions start at about the same time when just one connection "slot" remains for the role, it is possible that both will fail. Also, the limit is never enforced for superusers.
Caution must be exercised when specifying an unencrypted password with this command. The password will be transmitted to the server in cleartext, and it might also be logged in the client's command history or the server log. The command createuser, however, transmits the password encrypted. Also, psql contains a command \password
that can be used to safely change the password later.
Examples
Create a role that can log in, but don't give it a password:
CREATE ROLE jonathan LOGIN;
Create a role with a password:
CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';
(CREATE USER
is the same as CREATE ROLE
except that it implies LOGIN
.)
Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2004. After one second has ticked in 2005, the password is no longer valid.
CREATE ROLE miriam WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';
Create a role that can create databases and manage roles:
CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;
Compatibility
The CREATE ROLE
statement is in the SQL standard, but the standard only requires the syntax
CREATE ROLE name [ WITH ADMIN role_name ]
Multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE ROLE
, are PostgreSQL extensions.
The SQL standard defines the concepts of users and roles, but it regards them as distinct concepts and leaves all commands defining users to be specified by each database implementation. In PostgreSQL we have chosen to unify users and roles into a single kind of entity. Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the standard.
The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated by giving users the NOINHERIT
attribute, while roles are given the INHERIT
attribute.
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