1GRANT(7) SQL Commands GRANT(7)
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6 GRANT - define access privileges
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10 GRANT { { SELECT | INSERT | UPDATE | DELETE | TRUNCATE | REFERENCES | TRIGGER }
11 [,...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
12 ON [ TABLE ] tablename [, ...]
13 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
14 GRANT { { SELECT | INSERT | UPDATE | REFERENCES } ( column [, ...] )
16 [,...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] ( column [, ...] ) }
17 ON [ TABLE ] tablename [, ...]
18 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
19 GRANT { { USAGE | SELECT | UPDATE }
21 [,...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
22 ON SEQUENCE sequencename [, ...]
23 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
24 GRANT { { CREATE | CONNECT | TEMPORARY | TEMP } [,...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
26 ON DATABASE dbname [, ...]
27 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
28 GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
30 ON FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER fdwname [, ...]
31 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
32 GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
34 ON FOREIGN SERVER servername [, ...]
35 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
36 GRANT { EXECUTE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
38 ON FUNCTION funcname ( [ [ argmode ] [ argname ] argtype [, ...] ] ) [, ...]
39 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
40 GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
42 ON LANGUAGE langname [, ...]
43 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
44 GRANT { { CREATE | USAGE } [,...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
46 ON SCHEMA schemaname [, ...]
47 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
48 GRANT { CREATE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
50 ON TABLESPACE tablespacename [, ...]
51 TO { [ GROUP ] rolename | PUBLIC } [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
52 GRANT role [, ...] TO rolename [, ...] [ WITH ADMIN OPTION ]
54
57 The GRANT command has two basic variants: one that grants privileges on
58 a database object (table, column, view, sequence, database, foreign-
59 data wrapper, foreign server, function, procedural language, schema, or
60 tablespace), and one that grants membership in a role. These variants
61 are similar in many ways, but they are different enough to be described
62 separately.
63 As of PostgreSQL 8.1, the concepts of users and groups have been uni‐
65 fied into a single kind of entity called a role. It is therefore no
66 longer necessary to use the keyword GROUP to identify whether a grantee
67 is a user or a group. GROUP is still allowed in the command, but it is
68 a noise word.
69 GRANT ON DATABASE OBJECTS
71 This variant of the GRANT command gives specific privileges on a data‐
72 base object to one or more roles. These privileges are added to those
73 already granted, if any.
74 The key word PUBLIC indicates that the privileges are to be granted to
76 all roles, including those that might be created later. PUBLIC can be
77 thought of as an implicitly defined group that always includes all
78 roles. Any particular role will have the sum of privileges granted
79 directly to it, privileges granted to any role it is presently a member
80 of, and privileges granted to PUBLIC.
81 If WITH GRANT OPTION is specified, the recipient of the privilege can
83 in turn grant it to others. Without a grant option, the recipient can‐
84 not do that. Grant options cannot be granted to PUBLIC.
85 There is no need to grant privileges to the owner of an object (usually
87 the user that created it), as the owner has all privileges by default.
88 (The owner could, however, choose to revoke some of his own privileges
89 for safety.) The right to drop an object, or to alter its definition
90 in any way is not described by a grantable privilege; it is inherent in
91 the owner, and cannot be granted or revoked. The owner implicitly has
92 all grant options for the object, too.
93 Depending on the type of object, the initial default privileges might
95 include granting some privileges to PUBLIC. The default is no public
96 access for tables, columns, schemas, and tablespaces; CONNECT privilege
97 and TEMP table creation privilege for databases; EXECUTE privilege for
98 functions; and USAGE privilege for languages. The object owner can of
99 course revoke these privileges. (For maximum security, issue the REVOKE
100 in the same transaction that creates the object; then there is no win‐
101 dow in which another user can use the object.)
102 The possible privileges are:
104 SELECT Allows SELECT [select(7)] from any column, or the specific col‐
106 umns listed, of the specified table, view, or sequence. Also
107 allows the use of COPY [copy(7)] TO. This privilege is also
108 needed to reference existing column values in UPDATE [update(7)]
109 or DELETE [delete(7)]. For sequences, this privilege also
110 allows the use of the currval function.
111 INSERT Allows INSERT [insert(7)] of a new row into the specified table.
113 If specific columns are listed, only those columns may be
114 assigned to in the INSERT command (other columns will therefore
115 receive default values). Also allows COPY [copy(7)] FROM.
116 UPDATE Allows UPDATE [update(7)] of any column, or the specific columns
118 listed, of the specified table. (In practice, any nontrivial
119 UPDATE command will require SELECT privilege as well, since it
120 must reference table columns to determine which rows to update,
121 and/or to compute new values for columns.) SELECT ... FOR
122 UPDATE and SELECT ... FOR SHARE also require this privilege on
123 at least one column, in addition to the SELECT privilege. For
124 sequences, this privilege allows the use of the nextval and set‐
125 val functions.
126 DELETE Allows DELETE [delete(7)] of a row from the specified table.
128 (In practice, any nontrivial DELETE command will require SELECT
129 privilege as well, since it must reference table columns to
130 determine which rows to delete.)
131 TRUNCATE
133 Allows TRUNCATE [truncate(7)] on the specified table.
134 REFERENCES
136 To create a foreign key constraint, it is necessary to have this
137 privilege on both the referencing and referenced columns. The
138 privilege may be granted for all columns of a table, or just
139 specific columns.
140 TRIGGER
142 Allows the creation of a trigger on the specified table. (See
143 the CREATE TRIGGER [create_trigger(7)] statement.)
144 CREATE For databases, allows new schemas to be created within the data‐
146 base.
147 For schemas, allows new objects to be created within the schema.
149 To rename an existing object, you must own the object and have
150 this privilege for the containing schema.
151 For tablespaces, allows tables, indexes, and temporary files to
153 be created within the tablespace, and allows databases to be
154 created that have the tablespace as their default tablespace.
155 (Note that revoking this privilege will not alter the placement
156 of existing objects.)
157 CONNECT
159 Allows the user to connect to the specified database. This priv‐
160 ilege is checked at connection startup (in addition to checking
161 any restrictions imposed by pg_hba.conf).
162 TEMPORARY
164 TEMP Allows temporary tables to be created while using the specified
166 database.
167 EXECUTE
169 Allows the use of the specified function and the use of any
170 operators that are implemented on top of the function. This is
171 the only type of privilege that is applicable to functions.
172 (This syntax works for aggregate functions, as well.)
173 USAGE For procedural languages, allows the use of the specified lan‐
175 guage for the creation of functions in that language. This is
176 the only type of privilege that is applicable to procedural lan‐
177 guages.
178 For schemas, allows access to objects contained in the specified
180 schema (assuming that the objects' own privilege requirements
181 are also met). Essentially this allows the grantee to ``look
182 up'' objects within the schema. Without this permission, it is
183 still possible to see the object names, e.g. by querying the
184 system tables. Also, after revoking this permission, existing
185 backends might have statements that have previously performed
186 this lookup, so this is not a completely secure way to prevent
187 object access.
188 For sequences, this privilege allows the use of the currval and
190 nextval functions.
191 For foreign-data wrappers, this privilege enables the grantee to
193 create new servers using that foreign-data wrapper.
194 For servers, this privilege enables the grantee to create,
196 alter, and drop his own user's user mappings associated with
197 that server. Also, it enables the grantee to query the options
198 of the server and associated user mappings.
199 ALL PRIVILEGES
201 Grant all of the available privileges at once. The PRIVILEGES
202 key word is optional in PostgreSQL, though it is required by
203 strict SQL.
204 The privileges required by other commands are listed on the reference
206 page of the respective command.
207 GRANT ON ROLES
209 This variant of the GRANT command grants membership in a role to one or
210 more other roles. Membership in a role is significant because it con‐
211 veys the privileges granted to a role to each of its members.
212 If WITH ADMIN OPTION is specified, the member can in turn grant member‐
214 ship in the role to others, and revoke membership in the role as well.
215 Without the admin option, ordinary users cannot do that. However, data‐
216 base superusers can grant or revoke membership in any role to anyone.
217 Roles having CREATEROLE privilege can grant or revoke membership in any
218 role that is not a superuser.
219 Unlike the case with privileges, membership in a role cannot be granted
221 to PUBLIC. Note also that this form of the command does not allow the
222 noise word GROUP.
223
225 The REVOKE [revoke(7)] command is used to revoke access privileges.
226 A user may perform SELECT, INSERT, etc. on a column if he holds that
228 privilege for either the specific column or its whole table. Granting
229 the privilege at the table level and then revoking it for one column
230 will not do what you might wish: the table-level grant is unaffected by
231 a column-level operation.
232 When a non-owner of an object attempts to GRANT privileges on the
234 object, the command will fail outright if the user has no privileges
235 whatsoever on the object. As long as some privilege is available, the
236 command will proceed, but it will grant only those privileges for which
237 the user has grant options. The GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES forms will issue a
238 warning message if no grant options are held, while the other forms
239 will issue a warning if grant options for any of the privileges specif‐
240 ically named in the command are not held. (In principle these state‐
241 ments apply to the object owner as well, but since the owner is always
242 treated as holding all grant options, the cases can never occur.)
243 It should be noted that database superusers can access all objects
245 regardless of object privilege settings. This is comparable to the
246 rights of root in a Unix system. As with root, it's unwise to operate
247 as a superuser except when absolutely necessary.
248 If a superuser chooses to issue a GRANT or REVOKE command, the command
250 is performed as though it were issued by the owner of the affected
251 object. In particular, privileges granted via such a command will
252 appear to have been granted by the object owner. (For role membership,
253 the membership appears to have been granted by the containing role
254 itself.)
255 GRANT and REVOKE can also be done by a role that is not the owner of
257 the affected object, but is a member of the role that owns the object,
258 or is a member of a role that holds privileges WITH GRANT OPTION on the
259 object. In this case the privileges will be recorded as having been
260 granted by the role that actually owns the object or holds the privi‐
261 leges WITH GRANT OPTION. For example, if table t1 is owned by role g1,
262 of which role u1 is a member, then u1 can grant privileges on t1 to u2,
263 but those privileges will appear to have been granted directly by g1.
264 Any other member of role g1 could revoke them later.
265 If the role executing GRANT holds the required privileges indirectly
267 via more than one role membership path, it is unspecified which con‐
268 taining role will be recorded as having done the grant. In such cases
269 it is best practice to use SET ROLE to become the specific role you
270 want to do the GRANT as.
271 Granting permission on a table does not automatically extend permis‐
273 sions to any sequences used by the table, including sequences tied to
274 SERIAL columns. Permissions on sequences must be set separately.
275 Use psql(1)'s \dp command to obtain information about existing privi‐
277 leges for tables and columns. For example:
278 => \dp mytable
280 Access privileges
281 Schema | Name | Type | Access privileges | Column access privileges
282 --------+---------+-------+-----------------------+--------------------------
283 public | mytable | table | miriam=arwdDxt/miriam | col1:
284 : =r/miriam : miriam_rw=rw/miriam
285 : admin=arw/miriam
286 (1 row)
287 The entries shown by \dp are interpreted thus:
289 rolename=xxxx -- privileges granted to a role
291 =xxxx -- privileges granted to PUBLIC
292 r -- SELECT ("read")
294 w -- UPDATE ("write")
295 a -- INSERT ("append")
296 d -- DELETE
297 D -- TRUNCATE
298 x -- REFERENCES
299 t -- TRIGGER
300 X -- EXECUTE
301 U -- USAGE
302 C -- CREATE
303 c -- CONNECT
304 T -- TEMPORARY
305 arwdDxt -- ALL PRIVILEGES (for tables, varies for other objects)
306 * -- grant option for preceding privilege
307 /yyyy -- role that granted this privilege
309 The above example display would be seen by user miriam after creating
311 table mytable and doing:
312 GRANT SELECT ON mytable TO PUBLIC;
314 GRANT SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT ON mytable TO admin;
315 GRANT SELECT (col1), UPDATE (col1) ON mytable TO miriam_rw;
316 For non-table objects there are other \d commands that can display
319 their privileges.
320 If the ``Access privileges'' column is empty for a given object, it
322 means the object has default privileges (that is, its privileges column
323 is null). Default privileges always include all privileges for the
324 owner, and can include some privileges for PUBLIC depending on the
325 object type, as explained above. The first GRANT or REVOKE on an object
326 will instantiate the default privileges (producing, for example,
327 {miriam=arwdDxt/miriam}) and then modify them per the specified
328 request. Entries are shown in ``Column access privileges'' only for
329 columns with nondefault privileges.
330 Notice that the owner's implicit grant options are not marked in the
332 access privileges display. A * will appear only when grant options have
333 been explicitly granted to someone.
334
336 Grant insert privilege to all users on table films:
337 GRANT INSERT ON films TO PUBLIC;
339 Grant all available privileges to user manuel on view kinds:
342 GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON kinds TO manuel;
344 Note that while the above will indeed grant all privileges if executed
346 by a superuser or the owner of kinds, when executed by someone else it
347 will only grant those permissions for which the someone else has grant
348 options.
349 Grant membership in role admins to user joe:
351 GRANT admins TO joe;
353
356 According to the SQL standard, the PRIVILEGES key word in ALL PRIVI‐
357 LEGES is required. The SQL standard does not support setting the privi‐
358 leges on more than one object per command.
359 PostgreSQL allows an object owner to revoke his own ordinary privi‐
361 leges: for example, a table owner can make the table read-only to him‐
362 self by revoking his own INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and TRUNCATE privi‐
363 leges. This is not possible according to the SQL standard. The reason
364 is that PostgreSQL treats the owner's privileges as having been granted
365 by the owner to himself; therefore he can revoke them too. In the SQL
366 standard, the owner's privileges are granted by an assumed entity
367 ``_SYSTEM''. Not being ``_SYSTEM'', the owner cannot revoke these
368 rights.
369 The SQL standard provides for a USAGE privilege on other kinds of
371 objects: character sets, collations, translations, domains.
372 Privileges on databases, tablespaces, schemas, and languages are Post‐
374 greSQL extensions.
375
377 REVOKE [revoke(7)]
378SQL - Language Statements 2011-09-22 GRANT(7)