CREATE ROLE

Defines a new database role (user or group).

Synopsis

CREATE ROLE <name> [[WITH] <option> [ ... ]]

where <option> can be:

      SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER
    | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB
    | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE
    | CREATEEXTTABLE | NOCREATEEXTTABLE
      [ ( <attribute>='<value>'[, ...] ) ]
           where attribute and value are:
           type='readable'|'writable'
           protocol='gpfdist'|'http'
    | INHERIT | NOINHERIT
    | LOGIN | NOLOGIN
    | CONNECTION LIMIT <connlimit>
    | [ ENCRYPTED | UNENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD '<password>'
    | VALID UNTIL '<timestamp>'
    | IN ROLE <rolename> [, ...]
    | ROLE <rolename> [, ...]
    | ADMIN <rolename> [, ...]
    | RESOURCE QUEUE <queue_name>
    | [ DENY <deny_point> ]
    | [ DENY BETWEEN <deny_point> AND <deny_point>]

Description

CREATE ROLE adds a new role to a HAWQ system. 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. You must have CREATEROLE privilege or be a database superuser to use this command.

Note that roles are defined at the system-level and are valid for all databases in your HAWQ system.

Parameters

DAY <day> [ TIME '<time>' ]

{'Sunday' | 'Monday' | 'Tuesday' |'Wednesday' | 'Thursday' | 'Friday' |
'Saturday' | 0-6 }

{ 00-23 : 00-59 | 01-12 : 00-59 { AM | PM }}

DENY BETWEEN deny_point AND deny_point

Notes

The preferred way to add and remove role members (manage groups) is to use GRANT and REVOKE.

The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only, not for the role. The expiration time is not enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication method.

The INHERIT attribute governs inheritance of grantable privileges (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.

The INHERIT attribute is the default for reasons of backwards compatibility. In prior releases of HAWQ, 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 a role has the CREATEROLE privilege but not the CREATEDB privilege, it can create a new role with the CREATEDB privilege. Therefore, regard roles that have the CREATEROLE privilege as almost-superuser-roles.

The CONNECTION LIMIT option 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 clear-text, and it might also be logged in the client’s command history or the server log. The client program 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 that belongs to a resource queue:

CREATE ROLE jonathan LOGIN RESOURCE QUEUE poweruser;

Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2009 (CREATE USER is the same as CREATE ROLE except that it implies LOGIN):

CREATE USER joelle WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2010-01-01';

Create a role that can create databases and manage other roles:

CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;

Create a role that does not allow login access on Sundays:

CREATE ROLE user3 DENY DAY 'Sunday';

Compatibility

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 the database implementation. In HAWQ, users and roles are unified into a single type of object. Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the standard.

CREATE ROLE is in the SQL standard, but the standard only requires the syntax:

CREATE ROLE <name> [WITH ADMIN <rolename>]

Allowing multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE ROLE, are HAWQ extensions.

The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated by giving users the NOINHERIT attribute, while roles are given the INHERIT attribute.

See Also

SET ROLE, ALTER ROLE, DROP ROLE, GRANT, REVOKE, CREATE RESOURCE QUEUE