45.8. pg_authid

Note: The following description applies both to Postgres-XC and PostgreSQL if not described explicitly.

The catalog pg_authid contains information about database authorization identifiers (roles). A role subsumes the concepts of "users" and "groups". A user is essentially just a role with the rolcanlogin flag set. Any role (with or without rolcanlogin) can have other roles as members; see pg_auth_members.

Since this catalog contains passwords, it must not be publicly readable. pg_roles is a publicly readable view on pg_authid that blanks out the password field.

Chapter 19 contains detailed information about user and privilege management.

Because user identities are cluster-wide, pg_authid is shared across all databases of a cluster: there is only one copy of pg_authid per cluster, not one per database.

Table 45-8. pg_authid Columns

NameTypeDescription
rolnamenameRole name
rolsuperboolRole has superuser privileges
rolinheritboolRole automatically inherits privileges of roles it is a member of
rolcreateroleboolRole can create more roles
rolcreatedbboolRole can create databases
rolcatupdatebool Role can update system catalogs directly. (Even a superuser cannot do this unless this column is true)
rolcanloginbool Role can log in. That is, this role can be given as the initial session authorization identifier.
rolreplicationbool Role is a replication role. That is, this role can initiate streaming replication (see Section 24.2.5) and set/unset the system backup mode using pg_start_backup and pg_stop_backup.
rolconnlimitint4 For roles that can log in, this sets maximum number of concurrent connections this role can make. -1 means no limit.
rolpasswordtext Password (possibly encrypted); null if none. If the password is encrypted, this column will begin with the string md5 followed by a 32-character hexadecimal MD5 hash. The MD5 hash will be of the user's password concatenated to their user name. For example, if user joe has password xyzzy, PostgreSQL will store the md5 hash of xyzzyjoe. A password that does not follow that format is assumed to be unencrypted.
rolvaliduntiltimestamptzPassword expiry time (only used for password authentication); null if no expiration