1CREATE ROLE(7) PostgreSQL 9.2.24 Documentation CREATE ROLE(7)
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6 CREATE_ROLE - define a new database role
7
9 CREATE ROLE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]
10 where option can be:
12 SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER
14 | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB
15 | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE
16 | CREATEUSER | NOCREATEUSER
17 | INHERIT | NOINHERIT
18 | LOGIN | NOLOGIN
19 | REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION
20 | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
21 | [ ENCRYPTED | UNENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password'
22 | VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
23 | IN ROLE role_name [, ...]
24 | IN GROUP role_name [, ...]
25 | ROLE role_name [, ...]
26 | ADMIN role_name [, ...]
27 | USER role_name [, ...]
28 | SYSID uid
29
31 CREATE ROLE adds a new role to a PostgreSQL database cluster. A role is
32 an entity that can own database objects and have database privileges; a
33 role can be considered a “user”, a “group”, or both depending on how it
34 is used. Refer to Chapter 20, Database Roles, in the documentation and
35 Chapter 19, Client Authentication, in the documentation for information
36 about managing users and authentication. You must have CREATEROLE
37 privilege or be a database superuser to use this command.
38 Note that roles are defined at the database cluster level, and so are
40 valid in all databases in the cluster.
41
43 name
44 The name of the new role.
45 SUPERUSER, NOSUPERUSER
47 These clauses determine whether the new role is a “superuser”, who
48 can override all access restrictions within the database. Superuser
49 status is dangerous and should be used only when really needed. You
50 must yourself be a superuser to create a new superuser. If not
51 specified, NOSUPERUSER is the default.
52 CREATEDB, NOCREATEDB
54 These clauses define a role's ability to create databases. If
55 CREATEDB is specified, the role being defined will be allowed to
56 create new databases. Specifying NOCREATEDB will deny a role the
57 ability to create databases. If not specified, NOCREATEDB is the
58 default.
59 CREATEROLE, NOCREATEROLE
61 These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create
62 new roles (that is, execute CREATE ROLE). A role with CREATEROLE
63 privilege can also alter and drop other roles. If not specified,
64 NOCREATEROLE is the default.
65 CREATEUSER, NOCREATEUSER
67 These clauses are an obsolete, but still accepted, spelling of
68 SUPERUSER and NOSUPERUSER. Note that they are not equivalent to
69 CREATEROLE as one might naively expect!
70 INHERIT, NOINHERIT
72 These clauses determine whether a role “inherits” the privileges of
73 roles it is a member of. A role with the INHERIT attribute can
74 automatically use whatever database privileges have been granted to
75 all roles it is directly or indirectly a member of. Without
76 INHERIT, membership in another role only grants the ability to SET
77 ROLE to that other role; the privileges of the other role are only
78 available after having done so. If not specified, INHERIT is the
79 default.
80 LOGIN, NOLOGIN
82 These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to log in; that
83 is, whether the role can be given as the initial session
84 authorization name during client connection. A role having the
85 LOGIN attribute can be thought of as a user. Roles without this
86 attribute are useful for managing database privileges, but are not
87 users in the usual sense of the word. If not specified, NOLOGIN is
88 the default, except when CREATE ROLE is invoked through its
89 alternative spelling CREATE USER (CREATE_USER(7)).
90 REPLICATION, NOREPLICATION
92 These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to initiate
93 streaming replication or put the system in and out of backup mode.
94 A role having the REPLICATION attribute is a very highly privileged
95 role, and should only be used on roles actually used for
96 replication. If not specified, NOREPLICATION is the default.
97 CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
99 If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections
100 the role can make. -1 (the default) means no limit.
101 PASSWORD password
103 Sets the role's password. (A password is only of use for roles
104 having the LOGIN attribute, but you can nonetheless define one for
105 roles without it.) If you do not plan to use password
106 authentication you can omit this option. If no password is
107 specified, the password will be set to null and password
108 authentication will always fail for that user. A null password can
109 optionally be written explicitly as PASSWORD NULL.
110 ENCRYPTED, UNENCRYPTED
112 These key words control whether the password is stored encrypted in
113 the system catalogs. (If neither is specified, the default behavior
114 is determined by the configuration parameter password_encryption.)
115 If the presented password string is already in MD5-encrypted
116 format, then it is stored encrypted as-is, regardless of whether
117 ENCRYPTED or UNENCRYPTED is specified (since the system cannot
118 decrypt the specified encrypted password string). This allows
119 reloading of encrypted passwords during dump/restore.
120 VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
122 The VALID UNTIL clause sets a date and time after which the role's
123 password is no longer valid. If this clause is omitted the password
124 will be valid for all time.
125 IN ROLE role_name
127 The IN ROLE clause lists one or more existing roles to which the
128 new role will be immediately added as a new member. (Note that
129 there is no option to add the new role as an administrator; use a
130 separate GRANT command to do that.)
131 IN GROUP role_name
133 IN GROUP is an obsolete spelling of IN ROLE.
134 ROLE role_name
136 The ROLE clause lists one or more existing roles which are
137 automatically added as members of the new role. (This in effect
138 makes the new role a “group”.)
139 ADMIN role_name
141 The ADMIN clause is like ROLE, but the named roles are added to the
142 new role WITH ADMIN OPTION, giving them the right to grant
143 membership in this role to others.
144 USER role_name
146 The USER clause is an obsolete spelling of the ROLE clause.
147 SYSID uid
149 The SYSID clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards
150 compatibility.
151
153 Use ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)) to change the attributes of a role, and
154 DROP ROLE (DROP_ROLE(7)) to remove a role. All the attributes specified
155 by CREATE ROLE can be modified by later ALTER ROLE commands.
156 The preferred way to add and remove members of roles that are being
158 used as groups is to use GRANT(7) and REVOKE(7).
159 The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only,
161 not for the role per se. In particular, the expiration time is not
162 enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication
163 method.
164 The INHERIT attribute governs inheritance of grantable privileges (that
166 is, access privileges for database objects and role memberships). It
167 does not apply to the special role attributes set by CREATE ROLE and
168 ALTER ROLE. For example, being a member of a role with CREATEDB
169 privilege does not immediately grant the ability to create databases,
170 even if INHERIT is set; it would be necessary to become that role via
171 SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)) before creating a database.
172 The INHERIT attribute is the default for reasons of backwards
174 compatibility: in prior releases of PostgreSQL, users always had access
175 to all privileges of groups they were members of. However, NOINHERIT
176 provides a closer match to the semantics specified in the SQL standard.
177 Be careful with the CREATEROLE privilege. There is no concept of
179 inheritance for the privileges of a CREATEROLE-role. That means that
180 even if a role does not have a certain privilege but is allowed to
181 create other roles, it can easily create another role with different
182 privileges than its own (except for creating roles with superuser
183 privileges). For example, if the role “user” has the CREATEROLE
184 privilege but not the CREATEDB privilege, nonetheless it can create a
185 new role with the CREATEDB privilege. Therefore, regard roles that have
186 the CREATEROLE privilege as almost-superuser-roles.
187 PostgreSQL includes a program createuser(1) that has the same
189 functionality as CREATE ROLE (in fact, it calls this command) but can
190 be run from the command shell.
191 The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new
193 sessions start at about the same time when just one connection “slot”
194 remains for the role, it is possible that both will fail. Also, the
195 limit is never enforced for superusers.
196 Caution must be exercised when specifying an unencrypted password with
198 this command. The password will be transmitted to the server in
199 cleartext, and it might also be logged in the client's command history
200 or the server log. The command createuser(1), however, transmits the
201 password encrypted. Also, psql(1) contains a command \password that can
202 be used to safely change the password later.
203
205 Create a role that can log in, but don't give it a password:
206 CREATE ROLE jonathan LOGIN;
208 Create a role with a password:
210 CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';
212 (CREATE USER is the same as CREATE ROLE except that it implies LOGIN.)
214 Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2004.
216 After one second has ticked in 2005, the password is no longer valid.
217 CREATE ROLE miriam WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';
219 Create a role that can create databases and manage roles:
221 CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;
223
225 The CREATE ROLE statement is in the SQL standard, but the standard only
226 requires the syntax
227 CREATE ROLE name [ WITH ADMIN role_name ]
229 Multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE
231 ROLE, are PostgreSQL extensions.
232 The SQL standard defines the concepts of users and roles, but it
234 regards them as distinct concepts and leaves all commands defining
235 users to be specified by each database implementation. In PostgreSQL we
236 have chosen to unify users and roles into a single kind of entity.
237 Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the
238 standard.
239 The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated
241 by giving users the NOINHERIT attribute, while roles are given the
242 INHERIT attribute.
243
245 SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)), ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)), DROP ROLE
246 (DROP_ROLE(7)), GRANT(7), REVOKE(7), createuser(1)
247PostgreSQL 9.2.24 2017-11-06 CREATE ROLE(7)