The ALTER ROLE statement can be used to add, change, or remove a role's password and to change the role options for a role.
Since the keywords ROLE and USER can now be used interchangeably in SQL statements for enhanced Postgres compatibility, ALTER ROLE is now an alias for ALTER USER.
Considerations
- Password creation and alteration is supported only in secure clusters.
Required privileges
To alter other roles, the role must be a member of the admin role or have the CREATEROLE role option set.
Synopsis
Parameters
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
name |
The name of the role whose parameters you want to alter. |
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 new 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 role to create, alter, and drop other non-admin roles. By default, the role option is set to NOCREATEROLE for all non-admin roles. |
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
The following statements are run by the root user that is a member of the admin role and has ALL privileges.
Allow a role to log in to the database using a password
The following example allows a role to log in to the database with a password:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'An0ther$tr0nGpassW0rD' VALID UNTIL '2021-10-10';
Prevent a role from using password authentication
The following statement prevents the user from using password authentication and mandates certificate-based client authentication:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH PASSWORD NULL;
Allow a role to create other roles and manage authentication methods for the new roles
The following example allows the role to create other roles and manage authentication methods for them:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH CREATEROLE CREATELOGIN;
Allow a role to create and rename databases
The following example allows the role to create or rename databases:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH CREATEDB;
Allow a role to pause, resume, and cancel non-admin jobs
The following example allows the role to pause, resume, and cancel jobs:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH CONTROLJOB;
Allow a role to 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> ALTER ROLE carl WITH CANCELQUERY VIEWACTIVITY;
Allow a role to control changefeeds
The following example allows the role to run CREATE CHANGEFEED:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH CONTROLCHANGEFEED;
Allow a role to modify cluster settings
The following example allows the role to modify cluster settings:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER ROLE carl WITH MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING;
See also
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