<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Chapter 21. Database Roles</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="client-authentication-problems.html" title="20.15. Authentication Problems" /><link rel="next" href="database-roles.html" title="21.1. Database Roles" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">Chapter 21. Database Roles</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="client-authentication-problems.html" title="20.15. Authentication Problems">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html" title="Part III. Server Administration">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Part III. Server Administration</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 11.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="database-roles.html" title="21.1. Database Roles">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="chapter" id="USER-MANAG"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">Chapter 21. Database Roles</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="database-roles.html">21.1. Database Roles</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="role-attributes.html">21.2. Role Attributes</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="role-membership.html">21.3. Role Membership</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="role-removal.html">21.4. Dropping Roles</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="default-roles.html">21.5. Default Roles</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="perm-functions.html">21.6. Function Security</a></span></dt></dl></div><p> <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> manages database access permissions using the concept of <em class="firstterm">roles</em>. 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 functions) and can assign privileges on those objects to other roles to control who has access to which objects. Furthermore, it is possible to grant <em class="firstterm">membership</em> 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">“<span class="quote">users</span>”</span> and <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">groups</span>”</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 class="xref" href="ddl-priv.html" title="5.6. Privileges">Section 5.6</a>. </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="client-authentication-problems.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="database-roles.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">20.15. Authentication Problems </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 21.1. Database Roles</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
