SYSTEM CATALOG · System catalog

pg_authid

PostgreSQL documentation ↗Source definition ↗

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 21 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.

First seen PG 9.0Last seen PG 19Columns 12

9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19^β3

Checked column by column against a PostgreSQL 18.6 instance · Raw measurement record ↗

Columns PostgreSQL 18

pg_authid

COLUMN	TYPE	DESCRIPTION
`oid`	`oid`NOT NULL	Row identifier
`rolname`	`name`NOT NULL	Role name
`rolsuper`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role has superuser privileges
`rolinherit`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role automatically inherits privileges of roles it is a member of
`rolcreaterole`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role can create more roles
`rolcreatedb`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role can create databases
`rolcanlogin`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role can log in. That is, this role can be given as the initial session authorization identifier.
`rolreplication`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role is a replication role. A replication role can initiate replication connections and create and drop replication slots.
`rolbypassrls`	`boolean`NOT NULLDocumented as:`bool`	Role bypasses every row-level security policy, see Section 5.9 for more information.
`rolconnlimit`	`integer`NOT NULLDocumented as:`int4`	For roles that can log in, this sets maximum number of concurrent connections this role can make. -1 means no limit.
`rolpassword`	`text`	Encrypted password; null if none. The format depends on the form of encryption used.
`rolvaliduntil`	`timestamp with time zone`Documented as:`timestamptz`	Password expiry time (only used for password authentication); null if no expiration

Columns marked "implicit" are not included in SELECT *; some early statistics views are completed from same-version source, and the extra provenance is shown in the column description.

Common system columns 6

System attributes PostgreSQL provides, normally not expanded by SELECT *. Kept separately so they are not mixed in with ordinary columns.

Columns	Type	attnum
`tableoid`	`oid`	-6
`cmax`	`cid`	-5
`xmax`	`xid`	-4
`cmin`	`cid`	-3
`xmin`	`xid`	-2
`ctid`	`tid`	-1

Column evolution matrix

Hover a cell for the column type

PresentAdded / type or attribute changeRemoved

COLUMN	9.0	9.1	9.2	9.3	9.4	9.5	9.6	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
`oid`
`rolname`
`rolsuper`
`rolinherit`
`rolcreaterole`
`rolcreatedb`
`rolcatupdate`						−	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
`rolcanlogin`
`rolconnlimit`
`rolpassword`
`rolvaliduntil`
`rolreplication`	–
`rolbypassrls`	–	–	–	–	–

9.0 is the coverage baseline; a column already present in the baseline is not marked as added. The matrix aligns columns by name, so a rename appears as the old column removed and a new column added.

Evolution timeline

Changes between adjacent majors

PostgreSQL 19 ← 18

1 column description updates

PostgreSQL 17 ← 16

1 column description updatesCatalog description updated

PostgreSQL 14 ← 13

1 column description updatesCatalog description updated

PostgreSQL 13 ← 12

1 column description updates

PostgreSQL 12 ← 11

~ oid: implicit → ordinary2 column description updates

PostgreSQL 10 ← 9.6

1 column description updatesCatalog description updated

PostgreSQL 9.6 ← 9.5

1 column description updatesCatalog description updated

PostgreSQL 9.5 ← 9.4

+ rolbypassrls− rolcatupdate1 column description updates

PostgreSQL 9.3 ← 9.2

1 column description updates

PostgreSQL 9.1 ← 9.0

+ rolreplication1 column description updates

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