PostgreSQL 8.0.1 Documentation
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CREATE USER

Name

CREATE USER -- define a new database user account

Synopsis

Description

CREATE USER adds a new user to a PostgreSQL database cluster. Refer to Chapter 17 and Chapter 19 for information about managing users and authentication. You must be a database superuser to use this command.

Parameters

name

The name of the new user.

uid

The SYSID clause can be used to choose the PostgreSQL user ID of the new user. This is normally not necessary, but may be useful if you need to recreate the owner of an orphaned object.

If this is not specified, the highest assigned user ID plus one (with a minimum of 100) will be used as default.

CREATEDB NOCREATEDB

These clauses define a user's ability to create databases. If CREATEDB is specified, the user being defined will be allowed to create his own databases. Using NOCREATEDB will deny a user the ability to create databases. If not specified, NOCREATEDB is the default.

CREATEUSER NOCREATEUSER

These clauses determine whether a user will be permitted to create new users himself. CREATEUSER will also make the user a superuser, who can override all access restrictions. If not specified, NOCREATEUSER is the default.

groupname

A name of an existing group into which to insert the user as a new member. Multiple group names may be listed.

password

Sets the user's password. If you do not plan to use password authentication you can omit this option, but then the user won't be able to connect if you decide to switch to password authentication. The password can be set or changed later, using ALTER USER.

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.

Note that older clients may lack support for the MD5 authentication mechanism that is needed to work with passwords that are stored encrypted.

abstime

The VALID UNTIL clause sets an absolute time after which the user's password is no longer valid. If this clause is omitted the password will be valid for all time.

Notes

Use ALTER USER to change the attributes of a user, and DROP USER to remove a user. Use ALTER GROUP to add the user to groups or remove the user from groups.

PostgreSQL includes a program createuser that has the same functionality as CREATE USER (in fact, it calls this command) but can be run from the command shell.

The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only, not for the user account per se. In particular, the expiration time is not enforced when logging in using a non-password-based authentication method.

Examples

Create a user with no password:

CREATE USER jonathan;

Create a user with a password:

CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';

Create a user 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 USER miriam WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';

Create an account where the user can create databases:

CREATE USER manuel WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' CREATEDB;

Compatibility

The CREATE USER statement is a PostgreSQL extension. The SQL standard leaves the definition of users to the implementation.