The ALTER USER statement can be used to add, change, or remove a user's password and to change the role options for a user.
Since the keywords ROLE and USER can now be used interchangeably in SQL statements for enhanced Postgres compatibility, ALTER USER is now an alias for ALTER ROLE.
Considerations
- Password creation and alteration is supported only in secure clusters.
Required privileges
To alter other users, the user must be a member of the admin role or have the CREATEROLE parameter set.
Synopsis
Parameters
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
name |
The name of the user whose role options you want to alter. |
CREATELOGIN/NOCREATELOGIN |
Allow or disallow the user to manage authentication using the WITH PASSWORD, VALID UNTIL, and LOGIN/NOLOGIN parameters. By default, the parameter is set to NOCREATELOGIN for all non-admin users. |
LOGIN/NOLOGIN |
The LOGIN parameter allows a user to login with one of the client authentication methods. Setting the parameter to NOLOGIN prevents the user from logging in using any authentication method. |
password |
Let the user authenticate their access to a secure cluster using this new password. Passwords should be entered as a string literal. For compatibility with PostgreSQL, a password can also be entered as an identifier. To prevent a user from using password authentication and to mandate certificate-based client authentication, set the password as NULL. |
VALID UNTIL |
The date and time (in the timestamp format) after which the password is not valid. |
CREATEROLE/NOCREATEROLE |
Allow or disallow the user to create, alter, and drop other non-admin users. By default, the parameter is set to NOCREATEROLE for all non-admin users. |
CREATEDB/NOCREATEDB |
Allow or disallow the user to create or rename a database. The user is assigned as the owner of the database. By default, the parameter is set to NOCREATEDB for all non-admin users. |
CONTROLJOB/NOCONTROLJOB |
Allow or disallow the user to pause, resume, and cancel jobs. Non-admin users cannot control jobs created by admins. By default, the parameter is set to NOCONTROLJOB for all non-admin users. |
CANCELQUERY/NOCANCELQUERY |
Allow or disallow the user to cancel queries and sessions of other users. Without this privilege, users can only cancel their own queries and sessions. Even with this privilege, non-admins cannot cancel admin queries or sessions. This option should usually be combined with VIEWACTIVITY so that the user can view other users' query and session information. By default, the parameter is set to NOCANCELQUERY for all non-admin users. |
VIEWACTIVITY/NOVIEWACTIVITY |
Allow or disallow a role to see other users' queries and sessions using SHOW STATEMENTS, SHOW SESSIONS, and the Statements and Transactions pages in the DB Console. Without this privilege, the SHOW commands only show the user's own data and the DB Console pages are unavailable. By default, the parameter is set to NOVIEWACTIVITY for all non-admin users. |
CONTROLCHANGEFEED/NOCONTROLCHANGEFEED |
Allow or disallow the user to run CREATE CHANGEFEED on tables they have SELECT privileges on. By default, the parameter is set to NOCONTROLCHANGEFEED for all non-admin users. |
MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING/NOMODIFYCLUSTERSETTING |
Allow or disallow the user to modify the cluster settings with the sql.defaults prefix. By default, the parameter is set to NOMODIFYCLUSTERSETTING for all non-admin users. |
Examples
The following statements are run by the root user that is a member of the admin role and has ALL privileges.
Change a user's password
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH PASSWORD 'An0ther$tr0nGpassW0rD' VALID UNTIL '2021-10-10';
Prevent a user from using password authentication
The following statement prevents the user from using password authentication and mandates certificate-based client authentication:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH PASSWORD NULL;
Allow a user to create other users and manage authentication methods for the new users
The following example allows the user to create other users and manage authentication methods for them:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH CREATEROLE CREATELOGIN;
Allow a user to create and rename databases
The following example allows the user to create or rename databases:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH CREATEDB;
Allow a user to pause, resume, and cancel non-admin jobs
The following example allows the user to pause, resume, and cancel jobs:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH CONTROLJOB;
Allow a user to see and cancel non-admin queries and sessions
The following example allows the user to cancel queries and sessions for other non-admin roles:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH CANCELQUERY VIEWACTIVITY;
Allow a user to control changefeeds
The following example allows the user to run CREATE CHANGEFEED:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH CONTROLCHANGEFEED;
Allow a user to modify cluster settings
The following example allows the user to modify cluster settings:
root@:26257/defaultdb> ALTER USER carl WITH MODIFYCLUSTERSETTING;
