How to manage PostgreSQL roles and permissions — a practical guide

PostgreSQL has a permission system that trips up a lot of people, especially those coming from MySQL or simpler databases. The thing is, PostgreSQL doesn't really have "users" and "groups" as separate concepts. Everything is a role. Once you get that, the rest starts to make sense. This guide walks through the practical side of managing roles and permissions — the stuff you actually need day to day. What are roles in PostgreSQL In PostgreSQL, a role is a single entity that can represent a user, a group, or both. There's no CREATE USER vs CREATE GROUP distinction at the engine level. CREATE USER is just an alias for CREATE ROLE with the LOGIN attribute set by default. This simplification is actually useful once you stop fighting it. Every role has a set of attributes that control what it can do at the cluster level. These are separate from object-level privileges like SELECT or INSERT — attributes are about system-wide capabilities. Attribute What it does Default LOGIN Allows the role t