{"id":13876,"date":"2020-03-31T05:21:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T03:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/where-does-postgresql-store-information-about-default-privileges\/"},"modified":"2020-03-31T05:21:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T03:21:16","slug":"where-does-postgresql-store-information-about-default-privileges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/where-does-postgresql-store-information-about-default-privileges\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does PostgreSQL store information about default privileges?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent comment on the blog post about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/a-wonderful-postgresql-feature-default-privileges\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PostgreSQL default privileges<\/a> is the reason for this little post: &#8220;I\u2019d love to know where postgres stores default privileges?&#8221;. Well, all the information about privileges should be stored somewhere in the catalog so let&#8217;s check where that information could be.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To start with, we create a brand new user, a brand new schema and then modify the default privileges for that user in the given schema:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# create user a with login password 'a';\nCREATE ROLE\npostgres=# create schema s;\nCREATE SCHEMA\npostgres=# alter default privileges in schema s grant select on tables to a;\nALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES\n<\/pre>\n<p>There is a &#8220;useconfig&#8221; column in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/current\/view-pg-user.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pg_user<\/a> catalog table so you might think the information about default privileges is there:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# d pg_user\n                        View \"pg_catalog.pg_user\"\n    Column    |           Type           | Collation | Nullable | Default \n--------------+--------------------------+-----------+----------+---------\n usename      | name                     |           |          | \n usesysid     | oid                      |           |          | \n usecreatedb  | boolean                  |           |          | \n usesuper     | boolean                  |           |          | \n userepl      | boolean                  |           |          | \n usebypassrls | boolean                  |           |          | \n passwd       | text                     |           |          | \n valuntil     | timestamp with time zone |           |          | \n useconfig    | text[]                   | C         |          | \n\npostgres=# select * from pg_user where usename = 'a';\n usename | usesysid | usecreatedb | usesuper | userepl | usebypassrls |  passwd  | valuntil | useconfig \n---------+----------+-------------+----------+---------+--------------+----------+----------+-----------\n a       |    16408 | f           | f        | f       | f            | ******** |          | \n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>It is not, and actually it does not make any sense as default privileges are attached to schemas, not users. So it could be in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/current\/catalog-pg-namespace.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pg_namespace<\/a> catalog table:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# select * from pg_namespace where nspname = 's';\n  oid  | nspname | nspowner | nspacl \n-------+---------+----------+--------\n 16409 | s       |       10 | \n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>It is not there as well but it gives you a hint. Privileges have something to do with ACLs (Access control lists) so let&#8217;s check if there is a catalog table that could relate to that:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# select * from pg_tables where tablename like '%acl%';\n schemaname |   tablename    | tableowner | tablespace | hasindexes | hasrules | hastriggers | rowsecurity \n------------+----------------+------------+------------+------------+----------+-------------+-------------\n pg_catalog | pg_default_acl | postgres   |            | t          | f        | f           | f\n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>Here we go:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# select * from pg_default_acl where defaclnamespace = 's'::regnamespace;\n  oid  | defaclrole | defaclnamespace | defaclobjtype |   defaclacl    \n-------+------------+-----------------+---------------+----------------\n 16410 |         10 |           16409 | r             | {a=r\/postgres}\n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>&#8220;a=r&#8221; means: User &#8220;a&#8221; has read privileges on all the objects. Modifying the default privileges once more:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# alter default privileges in schema s grant insert on tables to a;\nALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES\npostgres=# select * from pg_default_acl defaclnamespace = 's'::regnamespace;\n  oid  | defaclrole | defaclnamespace | defaclobjtype |    defaclacl    \n-------+------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------------\n 16410 |         10 |           16409 | r             | {a=ar\/postgres}\n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>Now &#8220;a&#8221; was added, and that means append(insert). You can check the various flags <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/current\/ddl-priv.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in the documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;\/postgres&#8221; string defines the owner of the schema:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# alter user a superuser;\nALTER ROLE\npostgres=# c postgres a\nYou are now connected to database \"postgres\" as user \"a\".\npostgres=# create schema s2;\nCREATE SCHEMA\npostgres=# select * from pg_default_acl where defaclnamespace = 's2'::regnamespace;\n oid | defaclrole | defaclnamespace | defaclobjtype | defaclacl \n-----+------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------\n(0 rows)\n\npostgres=# create user b;\nCREATE ROLE\npostgres=# alter default privileges in schema s2 grant select on tables to b;\nALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES\npostgres=# select * from pg_default_acl where defaclnamespace = 's2'::regnamespace;\n  oid  | defaclrole | defaclnamespace | defaclobjtype | defaclacl \n-------+------------+-----------------+---------------+-----------\n 16413 |      16408 |           16411 | r             | {b=r\/a}\n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>I hope that answers the question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent comment on the blog post about PostgreSQL default privileges is the reason for this little post: &#8220;I\u2019d love to know where postgres stores default privileges?&#8221;. Well, all the information about privileges should be stored somewhere in the catalog so let&#8217;s check where that information could be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[77],"type_dbi":[],"class_list":["post-13876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database-administration-monitoring","tag-postgresql"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Where does PostgreSQL store information about default privileges? - dbi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/where-does-postgresql-store-information-about-default-privileges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where does PostgreSQL store information about default privileges?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A recent comment on the blog post about PostgreSQL default privileges is the reason for this little post: &#8220;I\u2019d love to know where postgres stores default privileges?&#8221;. 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