Manage Roles

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Warning:

As of October 30, 2020, CockroachDB v19.1 is no longer supported. For more details, refer to the Release Support Policy.

Roles are SQL groups that contain any number of users and roles as members. To create and manage your cluster's roles, use the following statements:

Terminology

To get started, basic role terminology is outlined below:

Term	Description
Role	A group containing any number of users or other roles. Note: All users belong to the `public` role, to which you can grant and revoke privileges.
Role admin	A member of the role that's allowed to modify role membership. To create a role admin, use `WITH ADMIN OPTION`.
Superuser / Admin	A member of the `admin` role. Only superusers can `CREATE ROLE` or `DROP ROLE`. The `admin` role is created by default and cannot be dropped.
`root`	A user that exists by default as a member of the `admin` role. The `root` user must always be a member of the `admin` role.
Inherit	The behavior that grants a role's privileges to its members.
Direct member	A user or role that is an immediate member of the role. Example: `A` is a member of `B`.
Indirect member	A user or role that is a member of the role by association. Example: `A` is a member of `C` ... is a member of `B` where "..." is an arbitrary number of memberships.

Example

For the purpose of this example, you need an enterprise license and one CockroachDB node running in insecure mode:

$ cockroach start \
--insecure \
--store=roles \
--listen-addr=localhost:26257

As the root user, use the cockroach user command to create a new user, maxroach:
```
$ cockroach user set maxroach --insecure
```
As the root user, open the built-in SQL client:
```
$ cockroach sql --insecure
```
Create a database and set it as the default:
```
> CREATE DATABASE test_roles;
```
```
> SET DATABASE = test_roles;
```
Create a role and then list all roles in your database:
```
> CREATE ROLE system_ops;
```
```
> SHOW ROLES;
```
```
+------------+
|  rolename  |
+------------+
| admin      |
| system_ops |
+------------+
```

Grant privileges to the system_ops role you created:

> GRANT CREATE, SELECT ON DATABASE test_roles TO system_ops;

> SHOW GRANTS ON DATABASE test_roles;

+------------+--------------------+------------+------------+
|  Database  |       Schema       |    User    | Privileges |
+------------+--------------------+------------+------------+
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | admin      | ALL        |
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | root       | ALL        |
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | system_ops | CREATE     |
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | system_ops | SELECT     |
| test_roles | information_schema | admin      | ALL        |
| test_roles | information_schema | root       | ALL        |
| test_roles | information_schema | system_ops | CREATE     |
| test_roles | information_schema | system_ops | SELECT     |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | admin      | ALL        |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | root       | ALL        |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | system_ops | CREATE     |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | system_ops | SELECT     |
| test_roles | public             | admin      | ALL        |
| test_roles | public             | root       | ALL        |
| test_roles | public             | system_ops | CREATE     |
| test_roles | public             | system_ops | SELECT     |
+------------+--------------------+------------+------------+

Add the maxroach user to the system_ops role:
```
> GRANT system_ops TO maxroach;
```
To test the privileges you just added to the system_ops role, use \q or ctrl-d to exit the interactive shell, and then open the shell again as the maxroach user (who is a member of the system_ops role):
```
$ cockroach sql --user=maxroach --database=test_roles --insecure
```
As the maxroach user, create a table:
```
> CREATE TABLE employees (
    id UUID DEFAULT uuid_v4()::UUID PRIMARY KEY,
    profile JSONB
  );
```
We were able to create the table because maxroach has CREATE privileges.
As the maxroach user, try to drop the table:
```
> DROP TABLE employees;
```
```
pq: user maxroach does not have DROP privilege on relation employees
```
You cannot drop the table because your current user (maxroach) is a member of the system_ops role, which doesn't have DROP privileges.

maxroach has CREATE and SELECT privileges, so try a SHOW statement:

> SHOW GRANTS ON TABLE employees;

+------------+--------+-----------+------------+------------+
|  Database  | Schema |   Table   |    User    | Privileges |
+------------+--------+-----------+------------+------------+
| test_roles | public | employees | admin      | ALL        |
| test_roles | public | employees | root       | ALL        |
| test_roles | public | employees | system_ops | CREATE     |
| test_roles | public | employees | system_ops | SELECT     |
+------------+--------+-----------+------------+------------+

Now switch back to the root user to test more of the SQL statements related to roles. Use \q or ctrl-d to exit the interactive shell, and then open the shell again as the root user:
```
$ cockroach sql --insecure
```

As the root user, revoke privileges and then drop the system_ops role:

> REVOKE ALL ON DATABASE test_roles FROM system_ops;

> SHOW GRANTS ON DATABASE test_roles;

+------------+--------------------+-------+------------+
|  Database  |       Schema       | User  | Privileges |
+------------+--------------------+-------+------------+
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | admin | ALL        |
| test_roles | crdb_internal      | root  | ALL        |
| test_roles | information_schema | admin | ALL        |
| test_roles | information_schema | root  | ALL        |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | admin | ALL        |
| test_roles | pg_catalog         | root  | ALL        |
| test_roles | public             | admin | ALL        |
| test_roles | public             | root  | ALL        |
+------------+--------------------+-------+------------+

> REVOKE ALL ON TABLE test_roles.* FROM system_ops;

> SHOW GRANTS ON TABLE test_roles.*;

+------------+--------+-----------+-------+------------+
|  Database  | Schema |   Table   | User  | Privileges |
+------------+--------+-----------+-------+------------+
| test_roles | public | employees | admin | ALL        |
| test_roles | public | employees | root  | ALL        |
+------------+--------+-----------+-------+------------+

Note:

All of a role or user's privileges must be revoked before it can be dropped.

> DROP ROLE system_ops;

Cockroach
University

Docs Hub

Manage Roles

Terminology

Example

See also

Cockroach University

Docs Hub

Cockroach University

Docs Hub

Manage Roles

Terminology

Example

See also

Cockroach
University

Cockroach
University