1CREATE ROLE(7) PostgreSQL 16.1 Documentation CREATE ROLE(7)
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6 CREATE_ROLE - define a new database role
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9 CREATE ROLE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]
10 where option can be:
12 SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER
14 | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB
15 | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE
16 | INHERIT | NOINHERIT
17 | LOGIN | NOLOGIN
18 | REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION
19 | BYPASSRLS | NOBYPASSRLS
20 | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
21 | [ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password' | PASSWORD NULL
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
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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 22 and Chapter 21 for information about
35 managing users and authentication. You must have CREATEROLE privilege
36 or be a database superuser to use this command.
37 Note that roles are defined at the database cluster level, and so are
39 valid in all databases in the cluster.
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42 name
43 The name of the new role.
44 SUPERUSER
46 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
54 NOCREATEDB
55 These clauses define a role's ability to create databases. If
56 CREATEDB is specified, the role being defined will be allowed to
57 create new databases. Specifying NOCREATEDB will deny a role the
58 ability to create databases. If not specified, NOCREATEDB is the
59 default. Only superuser roles or roles with CREATEDB can specify
60 CREATEDB.
61 CREATEROLE
63 NOCREATEROLE
64 These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create,
65 alter, drop, comment on, and change the security label for other
66 roles. See role creation for more details about what capabilities
67 are conferred by this privilege. If not specified, NOCREATEROLE is
68 the default.
69 INHERIT
71 NOINHERIT
72 When the GRANT statement is used to confer membership in one role
73 to another role, the GRANT may use the WITH INHERIT clause to
74 specify whether the privileges of the granted role should be
75 “inherited” by the new member. If the GRANT statement does not
76 specify either inheritance behavior, the new GRANT will be created
77 WITH INHERIT TRUE if the member role is set to INHERIT and to WITH
78 INHERIT FALSE if it is set to NOINHERIT.
79 In PostgreSQL versions before 16, the GRANT statement did not
81 support WITH INHERIT. Therefore, changing this role-level property
82 would also change the behavior of already-existing grants. This is
83 no longer the case.
84 LOGIN
86 NOLOGIN
87 These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to log in; that
88 is, whether the role can be given as the initial session
89 authorization name during client connection. A role having the
90 LOGIN attribute can be thought of as a user. Roles without this
91 attribute are useful for managing database privileges, but are not
92 users in the usual sense of the word. If not specified, NOLOGIN is
93 the default, except when CREATE ROLE is invoked through its
94 alternative spelling CREATE USER.
95 REPLICATION
97 NOREPLICATION
98 These clauses determine whether a role is a replication role. A
99 role must have this attribute (or be a superuser) in order to be
100 able to connect to the server in replication mode (physical or
101 logical replication) and in order to be able to create or drop
102 replication slots. A role having the REPLICATION attribute is a
103 very highly privileged role, and should only be used on roles
104 actually used for replication. If not specified, NOREPLICATION is
105 the default. Only superuser roles or roles with REPLICATION can
106 specify REPLICATION.
107 BYPASSRLS
109 NOBYPASSRLS
110 These clauses determine whether a role bypasses every row-level
111 security (RLS) policy. NOBYPASSRLS is the default. Only superuser
112 roles or roles with BYPASSRLS can specify BYPASSRLS.
113 Note that pg_dump will set row_security to OFF by default, to
115 ensure all contents of a table are dumped out. If the user running
116 pg_dump does not have appropriate permissions, an error will be
117 returned. However, superusers and the owner of the table being
118 dumped always bypass RLS.
119 CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
121 If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections
122 the role can make. -1 (the default) means no limit. Note that only
123 normal connections are counted towards this limit. Neither prepared
124 transactions nor background worker connections are counted towards
125 this limit.
126 [ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password'
128 PASSWORD NULL
129 Sets the role's password. (A password is only of use for roles
130 having the LOGIN attribute, but you can nonetheless define one for
131 roles without it.) If you do not plan to use password
132 authentication you can omit this option. If no password is
133 specified, the password will be set to null and password
134 authentication will always fail for that user. A null password can
135 optionally be written explicitly as PASSWORD NULL.
136 Note
138 Specifying an empty string will also set the password to null,
139 but that was not the case before PostgreSQL version 10. In
140 earlier versions, an empty string could be used, or not,
141 depending on the authentication method and the exact version,
142 and libpq would refuse to use it in any case. To avoid the
143 ambiguity, specifying an empty string should be avoided.
144 The password is always stored encrypted in the system catalogs. The
145 ENCRYPTED keyword has no effect, but is accepted for backwards
146 compatibility. The method of encryption is determined by the
147 configuration parameter password_encryption. If the presented
148 password string is already in MD5-encrypted or SCRAM-encrypted
149 format, then it is stored as-is regardless of password_encryption
150 (since the system cannot decrypt the specified encrypted password
151 string, to encrypt it in a different format). This allows reloading
152 of encrypted passwords during dump/restore.
153 VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
155 The VALID UNTIL clause sets a date and time after which the role's
156 password is no longer valid. If this clause is omitted the password
157 will be valid for all time.
158 IN ROLE role_name
160 The IN ROLE clause causes the new role to be automatically added as
161 a member of the specified existing roles. (Note that there is no
162 option to add the new role as an administrator; use a separate
163 GRANT command to do that.)
164 IN GROUP role_name
166 IN GROUP is an obsolete spelling of IN ROLE.
167 ROLE role_name
169 The ROLE clause causes one or more specified existing roles to be
170 automatically added as members of the new role. This in effect
171 makes the new role a “group”.
172 ADMIN role_name
174 The ADMIN clause is like ROLE, but the named roles are added to the
175 new role WITH ADMIN OPTION, giving them the right to grant
176 membership in this role to others.
177 USER role_name
179 The USER clause is an obsolete spelling of the ROLE clause.
180 SYSID uid
182 The SYSID clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards
183 compatibility.
184
186 Use ALTER ROLE to change the attributes of a role, and DROP ROLE to
187 remove a role. All the attributes specified by CREATE ROLE can be
188 modified by later ALTER ROLE commands.
189 The preferred way to add and remove members of roles that are being
191 used as groups is to use GRANT and REVOKE.
192 The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only,
194 not for the role per se. In particular, the expiration time is not
195 enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication
196 method.
197 The INHERIT attribute governs inheritance of grantable privileges (that
199 is, access privileges for database objects and role memberships). It
200 does not apply to the special role attributes set by CREATE ROLE and
201 ALTER ROLE. For example, being a member of a role with CREATEDB
202 privilege does not immediately grant the ability to create databases,
203 even if INHERIT is set; it would be necessary to become that role via
204 SET ROLE before creating a database.
205 The INHERIT attribute is the default for reasons of backwards
207 compatibility: in prior releases of PostgreSQL, users always had access
208 to all privileges of groups they were members of. However, NOINHERIT
209 provides a closer match to the semantics specified in the SQL standard.
210 PostgreSQL includes a program createuser(1) that has the same
212 functionality as CREATE ROLE (in fact, it calls this command) but can
213 be run from the command shell.
214 The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new
216 sessions start at about the same time when just one connection “slot”
217 remains for the role, it is possible that both will fail. Also, the
218 limit is never enforced for superusers.
219 Caution must be exercised when specifying an unencrypted password with
221 this command. The password will be transmitted to the server in
222 cleartext, and it might also be logged in the client's command history
223 or the server log. The command createuser(1), however, transmits the
224 password encrypted. Also, psql(1) contains a command \password that can
225 be used to safely change the password later.
226
228 Create a role that can log in, but don't give it a password:
229 CREATE ROLE jonathan LOGIN;
231 Create a role with a password:
233 CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';
235 (CREATE USER is the same as CREATE ROLE except that it implies LOGIN.)
237 Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2004.
239 After one second has ticked in 2005, the password is no longer valid.
240 CREATE ROLE miriam WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';
242 Create a role that can create databases and manage roles:
244 CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;
246
248 The CREATE ROLE statement is in the SQL standard, but the standard only
249 requires the syntax
250 CREATE ROLE name [ WITH ADMIN role_name ]
252 Multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE
254 ROLE, are PostgreSQL extensions.
255 The SQL standard defines the concepts of users and roles, but it
257 regards them as distinct concepts and leaves all commands defining
258 users to be specified by each database implementation. In PostgreSQL we
259 have chosen to unify users and roles into a single kind of entity.
260 Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the
261 standard.
262 The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated
264 by giving users the NOINHERIT attribute, while roles are given the
265 INHERIT attribute.
266
268 SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)), ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)), DROP ROLE
269 (DROP_ROLE(7)), GRANT(7), REVOKE(7), createuser(1),
270 createrole_self_grant
271PostgreSQL 16.1 2023 CREATE ROLE(7)