CREATE ROLE(7)		PostgreSQL 9.2.24 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
	   | CREATEUSER | NOCREATEUSER
	   | INHERIT | NOINHERIT
	   | LOGIN | NOLOGIN
	   | REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION
	   | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
	   | [ ENCRYPTED | UNENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password'
	   | VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
	   | IN ROLE role_name [, ...]
	   | IN GROUP role_name [, ...]
	   | ROLE role_name [, ...]
	   | ADMIN role_name [, ...]
	   | USER 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 20, Database Roles, in the documentation and
       Chapter 19, Client Authentication, in the documentation 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.

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.

       CREATEROLE, NOCREATEROLE
	   These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create
	   new roles (that is, execute CREATE ROLE). A role with CREATEROLE
	   privilege can also alter and drop other roles. If not specified,
	   NOCREATEROLE is the default.

       CREATEUSER, NOCREATEUSER
	   These clauses are an obsolete, but still accepted, spelling of
	   SUPERUSER and NOSUPERUSER. Note that they are not equivalent to
	   CREATEROLE as one might naively expect!

       INHERIT, NOINHERIT
	   These clauses determine whether a role "inherits" the privileges of
	   roles it is a member of. A role with the INHERIT attribute can
	   automatically use whatever database privileges have been granted to
	   all roles it is directly or indirectly a member of. Without
	   INHERIT, membership in another role only grants the ability to SET
	   ROLE to that other role; the privileges of the other role are only
	   available after having done so. If not specified, INHERIT is the
	   default.

       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 (CREATE_USER(7)).

       REPLICATION, NOREPLICATION
	   These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to initiate
	   streaming replication or put the system in and out of backup mode.
	   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.

       CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
	   If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections
	   the role can make. -1 (the default) means no limit.

       PASSWORD password
	   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.

       ENCRYPTED, UNENCRYPTED
	   These key words control whether the password is stored encrypted in
	   the system catalogs. (If neither is specified, the default behavior
	   is determined by the configuration parameter password_encryption.)
	   If the presented password string is already in MD5-encrypted
	   format, then it is stored encrypted as-is, regardless of whether
	   ENCRYPTED or UNENCRYPTED is specified (since the system cannot
	   decrypt the specified encrypted password string). 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 lists one or more existing roles to which the
	   new role will be immediately added as a new member. (Note that
	   there is no option to add the new role as an administrator; use a
	   separate GRANT command to do that.)

       IN GROUP role_name
	   IN GROUP is an obsolete spelling of IN ROLE.

       ROLE role_name
	   The ROLE clause lists one or more existing roles which are
	   automatically added as members of the new role. (This in effect
	   makes the new role a "group".)

       ADMIN role_name
	   The ADMIN clause is like ROLE, but the named roles are added to the
	   new role WITH ADMIN OPTION, giving them the right to grant
	   membership in this role to others.

       USER role_name
	   The USER clause is an obsolete spelling of the ROLE clause.

       SYSID uid
	   The SYSID clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards
	   compatibility.

NOTES
       Use ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)) to change the attributes of a role, and
       DROP ROLE (DROP_ROLE(7)) 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(7) and REVOKE(7).

       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 INHERIT attribute governs inheritance of grantable privileges (that
       is, 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; it would be necessary to become that role via
       SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)) before creating a database.

       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.

       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 the role "user" has the CREATEROLE
       privilege but not the CREATEDB privilege, nonetheless it can create a
       new role with the CREATEDB privilege. Therefore, regard roles that have
       the CREATEROLE privilege as almost-superuser-roles.

       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
       by giving users the NOINHERIT attribute, while roles are given the
       INHERIT attribute.

SEE ALSO
       SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)), ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)), DROP ROLE
       (DROP_ROLE(7)), GRANT(7), REVOKE(7), createuser(1)



PostgreSQL 9.2.24		  2017-11-06			CREATE ROLE(7)