Administrators

SecuritySQL Statements for User Management

Administrators

An administrator is a user that has sufficient rights to read, write to, create, alter or delete any object in a database to which that user’s administrator status applies.The table summarises how “superuser” privileges are enabled in the various Firebird security contexts.

Table 1. Administrator (“Superuser”) Characteristics
User	RDB$ADMIN Role	Comments
`SYSDBA`	Auto	Exists automatically at server level.Has full privileges to all objects in all databases.Can create, alter and drop users, but has no direct remote access to the security database
root user on POSIX	Auto	Exactly like `SYSDBA`.Firebird Embedded only.
Superuser on POSIX	Auto	Exactly like `SYSDBA`.Firebird Embedded only.
Windows Administrator	Set as `CURRENT_ROLE` if login succeeds	Exactly like `SYSDBA` if the following are all true: In `firebird.conf` file, `AuthServer` includes `Win_Sspi`, and `Win_Sspi` is present in the client-side plugins (`AuthClient`) configuration In databases where `AUTO ADMIN MAPPING` is enabled, or an equivalent mapping of the predefined group `DOMAIN_ANY_RID_ADMINS` for the role `RDB$ADMIN` exists No role is specified at login
Database owner	Auto	Like `SYSDBA`, but only in the databases they own
Regular user	Must be previously granted;must be supplied at login or have been granted as a default role	Like `SYSDBA`, but only in the databases where the role is granted
POSIX OS user	Must be previously granted;must be supplied at login or have been granted as a default role	Like `SYSDBA`, but only in the databases where the role is granted.Firebird Embedded only.
Windows user	Must be previously granted;must be supplied at login	Like `SYSDBA`, but only in the databases where the role is granted.Only available if in `firebird.conf` file, `AuthServer` includes `Win_Sspi`, and `Win_Sspi` is present in the client-side plugins (`AuthClient`) configuration

Fine-grained System Privileges

In addition to granting users full administrative privileges, system privileges make it possible to grant regular users a subset of administrative privileges that have historically been limited to SYSDBA and administrators only.For example:

Run utilities such as gbak, gfix, nbackup and so on
Shut down a database and bring it online
Trace other users' attachments
Access the monitoring tables
Run management statements

The implementation defines a set of system privileges, analogous to object privileges, from which lists of privileged tasks can be assigned to roles.

It is also possible to grant normal privileges to a system privilege, making the system privilege act like a special role type.

The system privileges are assigned through CREATE ROLE and ALTER ROLE.

Warning

Be aware that each system privilege provides a very thin level of control.For some tasks it may be necessary to give the user more than one privilege to perform some task.For example, add IGNORE_DB_TRIGGERS to USE_GSTAT_UTILITY because gstat needs to ignore database triggers.