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)