ROLE

Table of Contents

CREATE ROLE
ALTER ROLE
DROP ROLE

A role is a database object that packages a set of SQL privileges. Roles implement the concept of access control at a group level. Multiple privileges are granted to the role and then that role can be granted to or revoked from one or many users.

A user that is granted a role must supply that role in his login credentials in order to exercise the associated privileges. Any other privileges granted to the user are not affected by his login with the role. Logging in with multiple roles simultaneously is not supported.

In this section the tasks of creating and dropping roles are discussed.

CREATE ROLE

Used for: Creating a new ROLE object

Available in: DSQL, ESQL

Syntax:

CREATE ROLE rolename;

Table 5.45. CREATE ROLE Statement Parameter

Parameter	Description
rolename	Role name. The maximum length is 31 characters

The statement CREATE ROLE creates a new role object, to which one or more privileges can be granted subsequently. The name of a role must be unique among the names of roles in the current database.

	Warning
	It is advisable to make the name of a role unique among user names as well. The system will not prevent the creation of a role whose name clashes with an existing user name but, if it happens, the user will be unable to connect to the database.

Any user connected to the database can create a role. The user that creates a role becomes its owner.

Example: Creating a role named SELLERS:

CREATE ROLE SELLERS;

ALTER ROLE

ALTER ROLE has no place in the create-alter-drop paradigm for database objects since a role has no attributes that can be modified. Its actual effect is to alter an attribute of the database: Firebird uses it to enable and disable the capability for Windows Adminstrators to assume administrator privileges automatically when logging in.

This procedure can affect only one role: the system-generated role RDB$ADMIN that exists in every database of ODS 11.2 or higher. Several factors are involved in enabling this feature.

For details, see AUTO ADMIN MAPPING in the Security chapter.

DROP ROLE

Used for: Deleting a role

Available in: DSQL, ESQL

Syntax:

DROP ROLE rolename;

The statement DROP ROLE deletes an existing role. It takes just a single argument, the name of the role. Once the role is deleted, the entire set of privileges is revoked from all users and objects that were granted the role.

A role can be deleted by its owner or by an administrator.

Example: Deleting the role SELLERS:

DROP ROLE SELLERS;