CREATE ROLE(7) PostgreSQL 17.4 Documentation CREATE ROLE(7)
NAME
CREATE_ROLE - define a new database role
SYNOPSIS
CREATE ROLE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]
where option can be:
SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER
| CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB
| CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE
| INHERIT | NOINHERIT
| LOGIN | NOLOGIN
| REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION
| BYPASSRLS | NOBYPASSRLS
| CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
| [ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password' | PASSWORD NULL
| VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
| IN ROLE role_name [, ...]
| ROLE role_name [, ...]
| ADMIN role_name [, ...]
| SYSID uid
DESCRIPTION
CREATE ROLE adds a new role to a PostgreSQL database cluster. 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. Refer to Chapter 21 and Chapter 20 for information about
managing users and authentication. You must have CREATEROLE privilege
or be a database superuser to use this command.
Note that roles are defined at the database cluster level, and so are
valid in all databases in the cluster.
During role creation it is possible to immediately assign the newly
created role to be a member of an existing role, and also assign
existing roles to be members of the newly created role. The rules for
which initial role membership options are enabled are described below
in the IN ROLE, ROLE, and ADMIN clauses. The GRANT(7) command has
fine-grained option control during membership creation, and the ability
to modify these options after the new role is created.
PARAMETERS
name
The name of the new role.
SUPERUSER
NOSUPERUSER
These clauses determine whether the new role is a "superuser", who
can override all access restrictions within the database. Superuser
status is dangerous and should be used only when really needed. You
must yourself be a superuser to create a new superuser. If not
specified, NOSUPERUSER is the default.
CREATEDB
NOCREATEDB
These clauses define a role's ability to create databases. If
CREATEDB is specified, the role being defined will be allowed to
create new databases. Specifying NOCREATEDB will deny a role the
ability to create databases. If not specified, NOCREATEDB is the
default. Only superuser roles or roles with CREATEDB can specify
CREATEDB.
CREATEROLE
NOCREATEROLE
These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create,
alter, drop, comment on, and change the security label for other
roles. See role creation for more details about what capabilities
are conferred by this privilege. If not specified, NOCREATEROLE is
the default.
INHERIT
NOINHERIT
This affects the membership inheritance status when this role is
added as a member of another role, both in this and future
commands. Specifically, it controls the inheritance status of
memberships added with this command using the IN ROLE clause, and
in later commands using the ROLE clause. It is also used as the
default inheritance status when adding this role as a member using
the GRANT command. If not specified, INHERIT is the default.
In PostgreSQL versions before 16, inheritance was a role-level
attribute that controlled all runtime membership checks for that
role.
LOGIN
NOLOGIN
These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to log in; that
is, whether the role can be given as the initial session
authorization name during client connection. A role having the
LOGIN attribute can be thought of as a user. Roles without this
attribute are useful for managing database privileges, but are not
users in the usual sense of the word. If not specified, NOLOGIN is
the default, except when CREATE ROLE is invoked through its
alternative spelling CREATE USER.
REPLICATION
NOREPLICATION
These clauses determine whether a role is a replication role. A
role must have this attribute (or be a superuser) in order to be
able to connect to the server in replication mode (physical or
logical replication) and in order to be able to create or drop
replication slots. A role having the REPLICATION attribute is a
very highly privileged role, and should only be used on roles
actually used for replication. If not specified, NOREPLICATION is
the default. Only superuser roles or roles with REPLICATION can
specify REPLICATION.
BYPASSRLS
NOBYPASSRLS
These clauses determine whether a role bypasses every row-level
security (RLS) policy. NOBYPASSRLS is the default. Only superuser
roles or roles with BYPASSRLS can specify BYPASSRLS.
Note that pg_dump will set row_security to OFF by default, to
ensure all contents of a table are dumped out. If the user running
pg_dump does not have appropriate permissions, an error will be
returned. However, superusers and the owner of the table being
dumped always bypass RLS.
CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections
the role can make. -1 (the default) means no limit. Note that only
normal connections are counted towards this limit. Neither prepared
transactions nor background worker connections are counted towards
this limit.
[ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password'
PASSWORD NULL
Sets the role's password. (A password is only of use for roles
having the LOGIN attribute, but you can nonetheless define one for
roles without it.) If you do not plan to use password
authentication you can omit this option. If no password is
specified, the password will be set to null and password
authentication will always fail for that user. A null password can
optionally be written explicitly as PASSWORD NULL.
Note
Specifying an empty string will also set the password to null,
but that was not the case before PostgreSQL version 10. In
earlier versions, an empty string could be used, or not,
depending on the authentication method and the exact version,
and libpq would refuse to use it in any case. To avoid the
ambiguity, specifying an empty string should be avoided.
The password is always stored encrypted in the system catalogs. The
ENCRYPTED keyword has no effect, but is accepted for backwards
compatibility. The method of encryption is determined by the
configuration parameter password_encryption. If the presented
password string is already in MD5-encrypted or SCRAM-encrypted
format, then it is stored as-is regardless of password_encryption
(since the system cannot decrypt the specified encrypted password
string, to encrypt it in a different format). This allows reloading
of encrypted passwords during dump/restore.
VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
The VALID UNTIL clause sets a date and time after which the role's
password is no longer valid. If this clause is omitted the password
will be valid for all time.
IN ROLE role_name
The IN ROLE clause causes the new role to be automatically added as
a member of the specified existing roles. The new membership will
have the SET option enabled and the ADMIN option disabled. The
INHERIT option will be enabled unless the NOINHERIT option is
specified.
ROLE role_name
The ROLE clause causes one or more specified existing roles to be
automatically added as members, with the SET option enabled. This
in effect makes the new role a "group". Roles named in this clause
with the role-level INHERIT attribute will have the INHERIT option
enabled in the new membership. New memberships will have the ADMIN
option disabled.
ADMIN role_name
The ADMIN clause has the same effect as ROLE, but the named roles
are added as members of the new role with ADMIN enabled, giving
them the right to grant membership in the new role to others.
SYSID uid
The SYSID clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards
compatibility.
NOTES
Use ALTER ROLE to change the attributes of a role, and DROP ROLE to
remove a role. All the attributes specified by CREATE ROLE can be
modified by later ALTER ROLE commands.
The preferred way to add and remove members of roles that are being
used as groups is to use GRANT and REVOKE.
The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only,
not for the role per se. In particular, the expiration time is not
enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication
method.
The role attributes defined here are non-inheritable, i.e., being a
member of a role with, e.g., CREATEDB will not allow the member to
create new databases even if the membership grant has the INHERIT
option. Of course, if the membership grant has the SET option the
member role would be able to SET ROLE to the createdb role and then
create a new database.
The membership grants created by the IN ROLE, ROLE, and ADMIN clauses
have the role executing this command as the grantor.
The INHERIT attribute is the default for reasons of backwards
compatibility: in prior releases of PostgreSQL, 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.
PostgreSQL includes a program createuser(1) that has the same
functionality as CREATE ROLE (in fact, it calls this command) but can
be run from the command shell.
The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new
sessions start at about the same time when just one connection "slot"
remains for the role, it is possible that both will fail. Also, the
limit 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
cleartext, and it might also be logged in the client's command history
or the server log. The command createuser(1), however, transmits the
password encrypted. Also, psql(1) 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 with a password:
CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';
(CREATE USER is the same as CREATE ROLE except that it implies LOGIN.)
Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2004.
After one second has ticked in 2005, the password is no longer valid.
CREATE ROLE miriam WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';
Create a role that can create databases and manage roles:
CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;
COMPATIBILITY
The CREATE ROLE statement is in the SQL standard, but the standard only
requires the syntax
CREATE ROLE name [ WITH ADMIN role_name ]
Multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE
ROLE, are PostgreSQL extensions.
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 each database implementation. In PostgreSQL we
have chosen to unify users and roles into a single kind of entity.
Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the
standard.
The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated
creating SQL-standard users as PostgreSQL roles with the NOINHERIT
option, and SQL-standard roles as PostgreSQL roles with the INHERIT
option.
The USER clause has the same behavior as ROLE but has been deprecated:
USER role_name [, ...]
The IN GROUP clause has the same behavior as IN ROLE but has been
deprecated:
IN GROUP role_name [, ...]
SEE ALSO
SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)), ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)), DROP ROLE
(DROP_ROLE(7)), GRANT(7), REVOKE(7), createuser(1),
createrole_self_grant
PostgreSQL 17.4 2025 CREATE ROLE(7)
postgresql 17.4 - Generated Sat Mar 22 13:52:16 CDT 2025