[sql] postgres: upgrade a user to be a superuser?

In postgres, how do I change an existing user to be a superuser? I don't want to delete the existing user, for various reasons.

# alter user myuser ...?

This question is related to sql postgresql

The answer is


Run this Command

alter user myuser with superuser;

If you want to see the permission to a user run following command

\du

To expand on the above and make a quick reference:

  • To make a user a SuperUser: ALTER USER username WITH SUPERUSER;
  • To make a user no longer a SuperUser: ALTER USER username WITH NOSUPERUSER;
  • To just allow the user to create a database: ALTER USER username CREATEDB;

You can also use CREATEROLE and CREATEUSER to allow a user privileges without making them a superuser.

Documentation


$ su - postgres
$ psql
$ \du; for see the user on db
select the user that do you want be superuser and:
$ ALTER USER "user" with superuser;


May be sometimes upgrading to a superuser might not be a good option. So apart from super user there are lot of other options which you can use. Open your terminal and type the following:

$ sudo su - postgres
[sudo] password for user: (type your password here)
$ psql
postgres@user:~$ psql
psql (10.5 (Ubuntu 10.5-1.pgdg18.04+1))
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# ALTER USER my_user WITH option

Also listing the list of options

SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB  | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE |
CREATEUSER | NOCREATEUSER | INHERIT | NOINHERIT | LOGIN | NOLOGIN | REPLICATION|
NOREPLICATION | BYPASSRLS | NOBYPASSRLS | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit | 
[ ENCRYPTED | UNENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password' | VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'

So in command line it will look like

postgres=# ALTER USER my_user WITH  LOGIN

OR use an encrypted password.

postgres=# ALTER USER my_user  WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD '5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592';

OR revoke permissions after a specific time.

postgres=# ALTER USER my_user  WITH VALID UNTIL '2019-12-29 19:09:00';

alter user username superuser;

You can create a SUPERUSER or promote USER, so for your case

$ sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER myuser WITH SUPERUSER;"

or rollback

$ sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER myuser WITH NOSUPERUSER;"

To prevent a command from logging when you set password, insert a whitespace in front of it, but check that your system supports this option.

$  sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER my_user WITH PASSWORD 'my_pass';"
$  sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER my_user WITH SUPERUSER PASSWORD 'my_pass';"