<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Database Roles</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 9.3.9 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Server Administration" HREF="admin.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Authentication Problems" HREF="client-authentication-problems.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Database Roles" HREF="database-roles.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2015-06-13T20:07:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="CHAPTER" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="index.html" >PostgreSQL 9.3.9 Documentation</A ></TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A TITLE="Authentication Problems" HREF="client-authentication-problems.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="admin.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="20%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A TITLE="Database Roles" HREF="database-roles.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="CHAPTER" ><H1 ><A NAME="USER-MANAG" ></A >Chapter 20. Database Roles</H1 ><DIV CLASS="TOC" ><DL ><DT ><B >Table of Contents</B ></DT ><DT >20.1. <A HREF="database-roles.html" >Database Roles</A ></DT ><DT >20.2. <A HREF="role-attributes.html" >Role Attributes</A ></DT ><DT >20.3. <A HREF="role-membership.html" >Role Membership</A ></DT ><DT >20.4. <A HREF="perm-functions.html" >Function and Trigger Security</A ></DT ></DL ></DIV ><P > <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > manages database access permissions using the concept of <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >roles</I >. A role can be thought of as either a database user, or a group of database users, depending on how the role is set up. Roles can own database objects (for example, tables) and can assign privileges on those objects to other roles to control who has access to which objects. Furthermore, it is possible to grant <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >membership</I > in a role to another role, thus allowing the member role to use privileges assigned to another role. </P ><P > The concept of roles subsumes the concepts of <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"users"</SPAN > and <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"groups"</SPAN >. In <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > versions before 8.1, users and groups were distinct kinds of entities, but now there are only roles. Any role can act as a user, a group, or both. </P ><P > This chapter describes how to create and manage roles. More information about the effects of role privileges on various database objects can be found in <A HREF="ddl-priv.html" >Section 5.6</A >. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="client-authentication-problems.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="database-roles.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Authentication Problems</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="admin.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Database Roles</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
