CREATE ROLE

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Warning:
CockroachDB v21.1 is no longer supported as of November 18, 2022. For more details, refer to the Release Support Policy.

The CREATE ROLE statement creates SQL roles, which are groups containing any number of roles and users as members. You can assign privileges to roles, and all members of the role (regardless of whether if they are direct or indirect members) will inherit the role's privileges.

Note:

CREATE ROLE is no longer an Enterprise feature and is now freely available in the core version of CockroachDB. Also, since the keywords ROLE and USER can now be used interchangeably in SQL statements for enhanced Postgres compatibility.

CREATE USER is equivalent to the statement CREATE ROLE, with one exception: CREATE ROLE sets the NOLOGIN option by default, preventing the new role from being used to log in to the database. You can use CREATE ROLE and specify the LOGIN option to achieve the same result as CREATE USER.

Considerations

  • Role names:
    • Are case-insensitive
    • Must start with either a letter or underscore
    • Must contain only letters, numbers, periods, or underscores
    • Must be between 1 and 63 characters.
  • After creating roles, you must grant them privileges to databases and tables.
  • Roles and users can be members of roles.
  • Roles and users share the same namespace and must be unique.
  • All privileges of a role are inherited by all of its members.
  • Role options of a role are NOT inherited by any of its members.
  • There is no limit to the number of members in a role.
  • Membership loops are not allowed (direct: A is a member of B is a member of A or indirect: A is a member of B is a member of C ... is a member of A).

Required privileges

Unless a role is a member of the admin role, additional privileges are required to manage other roles.

  • To create other roles, a role must have the CREATEROLE role option set.
  • To add the LOGIN capability for other roles so that they may log in as users, a role must also have the CREATELOGIN role option set.
  • To be able to grant or revoke membership to a role for additional roles, a member of the role must be set as a role admin for that role.

Synopsis

CREATE ROLE IF NOT EXISTS name

Parameters

Parameter Description
name The name of the role you want to create. Role names are case-insensitive; must start with either a letter or underscore; must contain only letters, numbers, periods, or underscores; and must be between 1 and 63 characters.

Note that roles and users share the same namespace and must be unique.
CREATELOGIN/NOCREATELOGIN Allow or disallow the role to manage authentication using the WITH PASSWORD, VALID UNTIL, and LOGIN/NOLOGIN role options.

By default, the role option is set to NOCREATELOGIN for all non-admin roles.
LOGIN/NOLOGIN The LOGIN role option allows a role to login with one of the client authentication methods. Setting the role option to NOLOGIN prevents the role from logging in using any authentication method.
password Let the role authenticate their access to a secure cluster using this password. Passwords should be entered as a string literal. For compatibility with PostgreSQL, a password can also be entered as an identifier.

To prevent a role from using password authentication and to mandate certificate-based client authentication, set the password as NULL.
VALID UNTIL The date and time (in the timestamp format) after which the password is not valid.
CREATEROLE/NOCREATEROLE Allow or disallow the new role to create, alter, and drop other non-admin roles.

By default, the role option is set to NOCREATEROLE for all non-admin users.
CREATEDB/NOCREATEDB Allow or disallow the role to create or rename a database. The role is assigned as the owner of the database.

By default, the role option is set to NOCREATEDB for all non-admin roles.
CONTROLJOB/NOCONTROLJOB Allow or disallow the role to pause, resume, and cancel jobs. Non-admin roles cannot control jobs created by admins.

By default, the role option is set to NOCONTROLJOB for all non-admin roles.
CANCELQUERY/NOCANCELQUERY Allow or disallow the role to cancel queries and sessions of other roles. Without this role option, roles can only cancel their own queries and sessions. Even with this role option, non-admins cannot cancel admin queries or sessions. This option should usually be combined with VIEWACTIVITY so that the role can view other roles' query and session information.

By default, the role option is set to NOCANCELQUERY for all non-admin roles.
VIEWACTIVITY/NOVIEWACTIVITY Allow or disallow a role to see other roles' queries and sessions using SHOW STATEMENTS, SHOW SESSIONS, and the Statements and Transactions pages in the DB Console. Without this role option, the SHOW commands only show the role's own data and the DB Console pages are unavailable.

By default, the role option is set to NOVIEWACTIVITY for all non-admin roles.
CONTROLCHANGEFEED/NOCONTROLCHANGEFEED Allow or disallow the role to run CREATE CHANGEFEED on tables they have SELECT privileges on.

By default, the role option is set to NOCONTROLCHANGEFEED for all non-admin roles.
MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING/NOMODIFYCLUSTERSETTING Allow or disallow the role to modify the cluster settings with the sql.defaults prefix.

By default, the role option is set to NOMODIFYCLUSTERSETTING for all non-admin roles.

Examples

To run the following examples, start a secure single-node cluster and use the built-in SQL shell:

$ cockroach sql --certs-dir=certs

> SHOW ROLES;

username | options | member_of
---------+---------+------------
admin    |         | {}
root     |         | {admin}
(2 rows)
Note:

The following statements are run by the root user that is a member of the admin role and has ALL privileges.

Create a role

Role names are case-insensitive; must start with a letter, number, or underscore; must contain only letters, numbers, periods, or underscores; and must be between 1 and 63 characters.

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE no_options;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

 username  | options | member_of
 ----------+---------+------------
admin      |         | {}
no_options | NOLOGIN | {}
root       |         | {admin}
(3 rows)

After creating roles, you must grant them privileges to databases.

Create a role that can log in to the database

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_login WITH LOGIN PASSWORD '$tr0nGpassW0rD' VALID UNTIL '2021-10-10';

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

 username  |                options                | member_of
-----------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin      |                                       | {}
can_login  | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
no_options | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root       |                                       | {admin}
(4 rows)

Prevent a role from using password authentication

The following statement prevents the role from using password authentication and mandates certificate-based client authentication:

icon/buttons/copy 
> CREATE ROLE no_password WITH PASSWORD NULL;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

 username  |                options                | member_of
-----------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin      |                                       | {}
can_login  | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
no_options | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password| NOLOGIN                               | {}
root       |                                       | {admin}
(5 rows)

Create a role that can create other roles and manage authentication methods for the new roles

The following example allows the role to create other users and manage authentication methods for them:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_create_role WITH CREATEROLE CREATELOGIN;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

   username     |                options                | member_of
----------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin           |                                       | {}
can_create_role | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login       | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
no_options      | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password     | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root            |                                       | {admin}
(6 rows)

Create a role that can create and rename databases

The following example allows the role to create or rename databases:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_create_db WITH CREATEDB;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

      username        |                options                | member_of
----------------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin                 |                                       | {}
can_create_db         | CREATEDB, NOLOGIN                     | {}
can_create_role       | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login             | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
no_options            | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password           | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root                  |                                       | {admin}
(7 rows)

Create a role that can pause, resume, and cancel non-admin jobs

The following example allows the role to pause, resume, and cancel jobs:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_control_job WITH CONTROLJOB;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

      username        |                options                | member_of
----------------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin                 |                                       | {}
can_control_job       | CONTROLJOB, NOLOGIN                   | {}
can_create_db         | CREATEDB, NOLOGIN                     | {}
can_create_role       | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login             | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
manage_auth_for_roles | CREATELOGIN, NOLOGIN                  | {}
no_options            | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password           | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root                  |                                       | {admin}
(8 rows)

Create a role that can see and cancel non-admin queries and sessions

The following example allows the role to cancel queries and sessions for other non-admin roles:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_manage_queries WITH CANCELQUERY VIEWACTIVITY;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

      username        |                options                | member_of
----------------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin                 |                                       | {}
can_control_job       | CONTROLJOB, NOLOGIN                   | {}
can_create_db         | CREATEDB, NOLOGIN                     | {}
can_create_role       | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login             | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
can_manage_queries    | CANCELQUERY, NOLOGIN, VIEWACTIVITY    | {}
no_options            | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password           | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root                  |                                       | {admin}
(9 rows)

Create a role that can control changefeeds

The following example allows the role to run CREATE CHANGEFEED:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_control_changefeed WITH CONTROLCHANGEFEED;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

       username        |                options                | member_of
-----------------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin                  |                                       | {}
can_control_changefeed | CONTROLCHANGEFEED, NOLOGIN            | {}
can_control_job        | CONTROLJOB, NOLOGIN                   | {}
can_create_db          | CREATEDB, NOLOGIN                     | {}
can_create_role        | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login              | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
can_manage_queries     | CANCELQUERY, NOLOGIN, VIEWACTIVITY    | {}
no_options             | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password            | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root                   |                                       | {admin}
(10 rows)

Create a role that can modify cluster settings

The following example allows the role to modify cluster settings:

root@:26257/defaultdb> CREATE ROLE can_modify_cluster_setting WITH MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING;

root@:26257/defaultdb> SHOW ROLES;

         username          |                options                | member_of
---------------------------+---------------------------------------+------------
admin                      |                                       | {}
can_control_changefeed     | CONTROLCHANGEFEED, NOLOGIN            | {}
can_control_job            | CONTROLJOB, NOLOGIN                   | {}
can_create_db              | CREATEDB, NOLOGIN                     | {}
can_create_role            | CREATELOGIN, CREATEROLE, NOLOGIN      | {}
can_login                  | VALID UNTIL=2021-10-10 00:00:00+00:00 | {}
can_manage_queries         | CANCELQUERY, NOLOGIN, VIEWACTIVITY    | {}
can_modify_cluster_setting | MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING, NOLOGIN         | {}
no_options                 | NOLOGIN                               | {}
no_password                | NOLOGIN                               | {}
root                       |                                       | {admin}
(11 rows)

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