GRANT(7) PostgreSQL 17.4 Documentation GRANT(7)
NAME
GRANT - define access privileges
SYNOPSIS
GRANT { { SELECT | INSERT | UPDATE | DELETE | TRUNCATE | REFERENCES | TRIGGER | MAINTAIN }
[, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON { [ TABLE ] table_name [, ...]
| ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA schema_name [, ...] }
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { SELECT | INSERT | UPDATE | REFERENCES } ( column_name [, ...] )
[, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] ( column_name [, ...] ) }
ON [ TABLE ] table_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { USAGE | SELECT | UPDATE }
[, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON { SEQUENCE sequence_name [, ...]
| ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA schema_name [, ...] }
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { CREATE | CONNECT | TEMPORARY | TEMP } [, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON DATABASE database_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON DOMAIN domain_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER fdw_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON FOREIGN SERVER server_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { EXECUTE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON { { FUNCTION | PROCEDURE | ROUTINE } routine_name [ ( [ [ argmode ] [ arg_name ] arg_type [, ...] ] ) ] [, ...]
| ALL { FUNCTIONS | PROCEDURES | ROUTINES } IN SCHEMA schema_name [, ...] }
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON LANGUAGE lang_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { SELECT | UPDATE } [, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON LARGE OBJECT loid [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { SET | ALTER SYSTEM } [, ... ] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON PARAMETER configuration_parameter [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { { CREATE | USAGE } [, ...] | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON SCHEMA schema_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { CREATE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON TABLESPACE tablespace_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT { USAGE | ALL [ PRIVILEGES ] }
ON TYPE type_name [, ...]
TO role_specification [, ...] [ WITH GRANT OPTION ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
GRANT role_name [, ...] TO role_specification [, ...]
[ WITH { ADMIN | INHERIT | SET } { OPTION | TRUE | FALSE } ]
[ GRANTED BY role_specification ]
where role_specification can be:
[ GROUP ] role_name
| PUBLIC
| CURRENT_ROLE
| CURRENT_USER
| SESSION_USER
DESCRIPTION
The GRANT command has two basic variants: one that grants privileges on
a database object (table, column, view, foreign table, sequence,
database, foreign-data wrapper, foreign server, function, procedure,
procedural language, large object, configuration parameter, schema,
tablespace, or type), and one that grants membership in a role. These
variants are similar in many ways, but they are different enough to be
described separately.
GRANT on Database Objects
This variant of the GRANT command gives specific privileges on a
database object to one or more roles. These privileges are added to
those already granted, if any.
The key word PUBLIC indicates that the privileges are to be granted to
all roles, including those that might be created later. PUBLIC can be
thought of as an implicitly defined group that always includes all
roles. Any particular role will have the sum of privileges granted
directly to it, privileges granted to any role it is presently a member
of, and privileges granted to PUBLIC.
If WITH GRANT OPTION is specified, the recipient of the privilege can
in turn grant it to others. Without a grant option, the recipient
cannot do that. Grant options cannot be granted to PUBLIC.
If GRANTED BY is specified, the specified grantor must be the current
user. This clause is currently present in this form only for SQL
compatibility.
There is no need to grant privileges to the owner of an object (usually
the user that created it), as the owner has all privileges by default.
(The owner could, however, choose to revoke some of their own
privileges for safety.)
The right to drop an object, or to alter its definition in any way, is
not treated as a grantable privilege; it is inherent in the owner, and
cannot be granted or revoked. (However, a similar effect can be
obtained by granting or revoking membership in the role that owns the
object; see below.) The owner implicitly has all grant options for the
object, too.
The possible privileges are:
SELECT
INSERT
UPDATE
DELETE
TRUNCATE
REFERENCES
TRIGGER
CREATE
CONNECT
TEMPORARY
EXECUTE
USAGE
SET
ALTER SYSTEM
MAINTAIN
Specific types of privileges, as defined in Section 5.8.
TEMP
Alternative spelling for TEMPORARY.
ALL PRIVILEGES
Grant all of the privileges available for the object's type. The
PRIVILEGES key word is optional in PostgreSQL, though it is
required by strict SQL.
The FUNCTION syntax works for plain functions, aggregate functions, and
window functions, but not for procedures; use PROCEDURE for those.
Alternatively, use ROUTINE to refer to a function, aggregate function,
window function, or procedure regardless of its precise type.
There is also an option to grant privileges on all objects of the same
type within one or more schemas. This functionality is currently
supported only for tables, sequences, functions, and procedures. ALL
TABLES also affects views and foreign tables, just like the
specific-object GRANT command. ALL FUNCTIONS also affects aggregate
and window functions, but not procedures, again just like the
specific-object GRANT command. Use ALL ROUTINES to include procedures.
GRANT on Roles
This variant of the GRANT command grants membership in a role to one or
more other roles, and the modification of membership options SET,
INHERIT, and ADMIN; see Section 21.3 for details. Membership in a role
is significant because it potentially allows access to the privileges
granted to a role to each of its members, and potentially also the
ability to make changes to the role itself. However, the actual
permissions conferred depend on the options associated with the grant.
To modify that options of an existing membership, simply specify the
membership with updated option values.
Each of the options described below can be set to either TRUE or FALSE.
The keyword OPTION is accepted as a synonym for TRUE, so that WITH
ADMIN OPTION is a synonym for WITH ADMIN TRUE. When altering an
existing membership the omission of an option results in the current
value being retained.
The ADMIN option allows the member to in turn grant membership in the
role to others, and revoke membership in the role as well. Without the
admin option, ordinary users cannot do that. A role is not considered
to hold WITH ADMIN OPTION on itself. Database superusers can grant or
revoke membership in any role to anyone. This option defaults to FALSE.
The INHERIT option controls the inheritance status of the new
membership; see Section 21.3 for details on inheritance. If it is set
to TRUE, it causes the new member to inherit from the granted role. If
set to FALSE, the new member does not inherit. If unspecified when
creating a new role membership, this defaults to the inheritance
attribute of the new member.
The SET option, if it is set to TRUE, allows the member to change to
the granted role using the SET ROLE command. If a role is an indirect
member of another role, it can use SET ROLE to change to that role only
if there is a chain of grants each of which has SET TRUE. This option
defaults to TRUE.
To create an object owned by another role or give ownership of an
existing object to another role, you must have the ability to SET ROLE
to that role; otherwise, commands such as ALTER ... OWNER TO or CREATE
DATABASE ... OWNER will fail. However, a user who inherits the
privileges of a role but does not have the ability to SET ROLE to that
role may be able to obtain full access to the role by manipulating
existing objects owned by that role (e.g. they could redefine an
existing function to act as a Trojan horse). Therefore, if a role's
privileges are to be inherited but should not be accessible via SET
ROLE, it should not own any SQL objects.
If GRANTED BY is specified, the grant is recorded as having been done
by the specified role. A user can only attribute a grant to another
role if they possess the privileges of that role. The role recorded as
the grantor must have ADMIN OPTION on the target role, unless it is the
bootstrap superuser. When a grant is recorded as having a grantor other
than the bootstrap superuser, it depends on the grantor continuing to
possess ADMIN OPTION on the role; so, if ADMIN OPTION is revoked,
dependent grants must be revoked as well.
Unlike the case with privileges, membership in a role cannot be granted
to PUBLIC. Note also that this form of the command does not allow the
noise word GROUP in role_specification.
NOTES
The REVOKE command is used to revoke access privileges.
Since PostgreSQL 8.1, the concepts of users and groups have been
unified into a single kind of entity called a role. It is therefore no
longer necessary to use the keyword GROUP to identify whether a grantee
is a user or a group. GROUP is still allowed in the command, but it is
a noise word.
A user may perform SELECT, INSERT, etc. on a column if they hold that
privilege for either the specific column or its whole table. Granting
the privilege at the table level and then revoking it for one column
will not do what one might wish: the table-level grant is unaffected by
a column-level operation.
When a non-owner of an object attempts to GRANT privileges on the
object, the command will fail outright if the user has no privileges
whatsoever on the object. As long as some privilege is available, the
command will proceed, but it will grant only those privileges for which
the user has grant options. The GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES forms will issue a
warning message if no grant options are held, while the other forms
will issue a warning if grant options for any of the privileges
specifically named in the command are not held. (In principle these
statements apply to the object owner as well, but since the owner is
always treated as holding all grant options, the cases can never
occur.)
It should be noted that database superusers can access all objects
regardless of object privilege settings. This is comparable to the
rights of root in a Unix system. As with root, it's unwise to operate
as a superuser except when absolutely necessary.
If a superuser chooses to issue a GRANT or REVOKE command, the command
is performed as though it were issued by the owner of the affected
object. In particular, privileges granted via such a command will
appear to have been granted by the object owner. (For role membership,
the membership appears to have been granted by the bootstrap
superuser.)
GRANT and REVOKE can also be done by a role that is not the owner of
the affected object, but is a member of the role that owns the object,
or is a member of a role that holds privileges WITH GRANT OPTION on the
object. In this case the privileges will be recorded as having been
granted by the role that actually owns the object or holds the
privileges WITH GRANT OPTION. For example, if table t1 is owned by role
g1, of which role u1 is a member, then u1 can grant privileges on t1 to
u2, but those privileges will appear to have been granted directly by
g1. Any other member of role g1 could revoke them later.
If the role executing GRANT holds the required privileges indirectly
via more than one role membership path, it is unspecified which
containing role will be recorded as having done the grant. In such
cases it is best practice to use SET ROLE to become the specific role
you want to do the GRANT as.
Granting permission on a table does not automatically extend
permissions to any sequences used by the table, including sequences
tied to SERIAL columns. Permissions on sequences must be set
separately.
See Section 5.8 for more information about specific privilege types, as
well as how to inspect objects' privileges.
EXAMPLES
Grant insert privilege to all users on table films:
GRANT INSERT ON films TO PUBLIC;
Grant all available privileges to user manuel on view kinds:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON kinds TO manuel;
Note that while the above will indeed grant all privileges if executed
by a superuser or the owner of kinds, when executed by someone else it
will only grant those permissions for which the someone else has grant
options.
Grant membership in role admins to user joe:
GRANT admins TO joe;
COMPATIBILITY
According to the SQL standard, the PRIVILEGES key word in ALL
PRIVILEGES is required. The SQL standard does not support setting the
privileges on more than one object per command.
PostgreSQL allows an object owner to revoke their own ordinary
privileges: for example, a table owner can make the table read-only to
themselves by revoking their own INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and TRUNCATE
privileges. This is not possible according to the SQL standard. The
reason is that PostgreSQL treats the owner's privileges as having been
granted by the owner to themselves; therefore they can revoke them too.
In the SQL standard, the owner's privileges are granted by an assumed
entity "_SYSTEM". Not being "_SYSTEM", the owner cannot revoke these
rights.
According to the SQL standard, grant options can be granted to PUBLIC;
PostgreSQL only supports granting grant options to roles.
The SQL standard allows the GRANTED BY option to specify only
CURRENT_USER or CURRENT_ROLE. The other variants are PostgreSQL
extensions.
The SQL standard provides for a USAGE privilege on other kinds of
objects: character sets, collations, translations.
In the SQL standard, sequences only have a USAGE privilege, which
controls the use of the NEXT VALUE FOR expression, which is equivalent
to the function nextval in PostgreSQL. The sequence privileges SELECT
and UPDATE are PostgreSQL extensions. The application of the sequence
USAGE privilege to the currval function is also a PostgreSQL extension
(as is the function itself).
Privileges on databases, tablespaces, schemas, languages, and
configuration parameters are PostgreSQL extensions.
SEE ALSO
REVOKE(7), ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES (ALTER_DEFAULT_PRIVILEGES(7))
PostgreSQL 17.4 2025 GRANT(7)
postgresql 17.4 - Generated Sat Mar 22 16:46:47 CDT 2025