Roles and Privileges in sql
In SQL database management systems (DBMS), managing database user access rights and administrator control, and establishing system security within the database, are essential tasks that involve user roles, permissions, and privileges. User roles in database systems are a concept for grouping database users and providing them with special administrator privileges. This is useful for users who require similar database administration access and control. Database user access rights and privileges help determine which database tasks or actions database users can perform on provided roles or specific database objects and tables.
Here, you will find detailed information about database user administrator roles and privileges and their usage in popular relational database software such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.
User Roles in Database Systems.
Roles or permissions for database users are the source of administrative privileges, which are assigned or provided to database users by the database administrator. Instead of providing rights or permissions to multiple individual users, creating an administrator role for a specific user and assigning users to these roles or providing them with rights is an effective method.
Advantages of Database User Roles.
- Simplified Permission Management – Instead of providing individual, separate permissions to each user in the database, the database administrator can assign roles to those users collectively, making database administration activities easier.
- Consistency – Database user roles ensure that users with similar rights receive the same administrative access or control.
- Security – By grouping database users with similar tasks or actions into specific privileges or roles, the administrator can easily apply the principle of least privilege.
User Privileges in Database Systems.
Database privileges or permissions are special permissions granted to database users or roles, which allow the database user to perform specific actions on database objects such as tables, views, or stored procedures.
Elements of Database System User Privileges.
- SELECT – This grants the database user permission to read data from a table or view.
- INSERT – This grants the database user permission to insert new rows into a table.
- UPDATE – This grants the database user permission to update data in a table.
- DELETE – This grants the database user permission to delete rows from a table.
- EXECUTE – This grants the database user permission to run stored procedures or functions.
- ALTER – This grants the database user permission to alter the structure of a database object, such as modifying a database table, etc.
- DROP – This grants the database user permission to delete a database object.
- CREATE – This grants the database user permission to create new database objects, such as tables, views, etc.
Working with Roles and Privileges in MySQL.
In MySQL database software, user roles are groups or collections of permissions and privileges, and database administrators can assign privileges to user roles to manage or control user access.
Creating User Roles in MySQL.
To create a new role in MySQL database software.
CREATE ROLE ‘role_name’;
Example of Creating User Roles in MySQL.
CREATE ROLE ‘admin_role’;
Granting Privileges to a Role in MySQL.
To grant privileges to a role in MySQL database software, follow the command or statement below.
GRANT privilege_type ON database_name.table_name TO ‘role_name’;
Example of Granting Privileges in MySQL.
GRANT SELECT, INSERT ON customer_db.employee TO ‘admin_role’;
This grants the admin_role SELECT and INSERT privileges on the employee table in the database. This is for assigning roles to existing database users.
To assign a role to a database user.
GRANT ‘role_name’ TO ‘username’@’host’;
Example of Granting User Role Privileges.
GRANT ‘admin_role’ TO ‘siddhi_deora’@’localhost’;
Revoking privileges from a database user role.
To revoke privileges from a user role in the database software, follow the command or statement given below:
REVOKE privilege_type ON database_name.table_name FROM ‘role_name’;
Example of Revoking privileges.
REVOKE INSERT ON customer_db.employee FROM ‘admin_role’;
Revoking a role from a database user.
To revoke an administrator role from a database user, follow the command or statement given below:
REVOKE ‘role_name’ FROM ‘username’@’host’;
Example of Revoking a role from a database user.
REVOKE ‘admin_role’ FROM ‘siddhi_deora’@’localhost’;
Deleting a database user role.
To delete a database user role in the database software, follow the command or statement given below:
DROP ROLE ‘role_name’;
Example of Deleting a database user role.
DROP ROLE ‘admin_role’;
Working with Roles and Privileges in PostgreSQL software.
In PostgreSQL database software, user roles are used for both database users and grouping them, and these user roles are granted privileges.
Creating Roles in PostgreSQL software.
To create a user role in PostgreSQL database software, which is equivalent to a user or group:
CREATE ROLE role_name;
Example of creating Roles in PostgreSQL.
CREATE ROLE admin_role;
Granting privileges to a database user role.
To grant privileges to a database user role, the administrator uses the GRANT command or statement.
GRANT privilege_type ON object TO role_name;
Example of granting privileges.
GRANT SELECT, INSERT ON employee TO admin_role;
Assigning a role to a database user.
To assign a role to a user in PostgreSQL database software, follow the command or statement given below.
GRANT role_name TO username;
Example of assigning a role to a database user.
GRANT admin_role TO siddhi_deora;
Revoking privileges from a database user role.
To revoke specific privileges from a database user, follow the command or statement given below.
REVOKE privilege_type ON object FROM role_name;
Example of revoking privileges from a database user role.
REVOKE INSERT ON employee FROM admin_role;
Revoking a role from a database user.
To revoke a role from a database user, follow the command or statement given below.
REVOKE role_name FROM username;
Example of revoking a role from a database user.
REVOKE admin_role FROM siddhi_deora;
Deleting a database user role.
To delete a database user role (to remove it completely), follow the command or statement given below.
DROP ROLE role_name;
Deleting a database user role.
DROP ROLE admin_role;
Working with User Roles and Privileges in SQL Server software.
In SQL Server software, database user administrator roles can be assigned at both the server level and the database level. While server-level user roles are used to manage and control access to the entire SQL Server instance, database-level user admin roles manage user access within a specific database.
Creating Database Roles in SQL Server Software.
To create database user roles in SQL Server software, follow the command or statement given below:
CREATE ROLE role_name;
Example of Creating Database Roles in SQL Server.
CREATE ROLE admin_role;
Granting Privileges to a User Role.
To provide special privileges to a database user role, follow the command or statement given below:
GRANT privilege_type ON object TO role_name;
Example of Granting Privileges to a User Role.
GRANT SELECT, INSERT ON employee TO admin_role;
Assigning Roles to Database Users.
To assign a role to a database user, apply the command given below:
EXEC sp_addrolemember ‘role_name’, ‘username’;
Example of Assigning Roles to Database Users.
EXEC sp_addrolemember ‘admin_role’, ‘siddhi_deora’;
Revoking Privileges from a Database User Role.
To revoke privileges from a particular database user, apply the command or statement given below:
REVOKE privilege_type ON object FROM role_name;
Example of revoking privileges from a Database User Role.
REVOKE INSERT ON employee FROM admin_role;
Removing a Role from a Database User.
To remove a role from a database user, follow the command given below.
EXEC sp_droprolemember ‘role_name’, ‘username’;
Example of Removing a Role from a Database User.
EXEC sp_droprolemember ‘admin_role’, ‘siddhi_deora’;
Deleting Database User Roles.
To delete a database user role, follow the command given below.
DROP ROLE role_name;
Example of Deleting Database User Roles.
DROP ROLE admin_role;
Types of User Privileges in SQL Database Software.
- SELECT – Provides a database user with permission to read data from a table or view.
- INSERT – Provides a database user with permission to insert new records into a table.
- UPDATE – Provides a database user with permission to update existing records in a table.
- DELETE – Provides a database user with permission to delete records from a table.
- EXECUTE – Provides a database user with permission to run stored procedures or functions.
- CREATE – Provides a database user with permission to create new objects such as tables and views.
- DROP – Provides a database user with permission to delete objects such as tables and views.
- ALTER – Provides a database user with permission to modify the structure of objects, such as adding/removing columns, etc.
- ALL – Provides a database user with all available rights on an object.
Conclusion on Roles and Privileges in SQL.
In SQL database management systems (DBMS), database user roles and privileges are important features in database management, providing database users with full control over existing database access and security. By grouping database users into administrative roles, administrators can easily manage and control user access levels, ensure the principle of least privilege for database users, and easily create specific database user management. How to grant and revoke privileges to a database user is crucial for database administrators in creating a secure database environment, whether they are using MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, or any other RDBMS software.
