From 63acfb79ab53d3833ad035728fb67a6c3018778f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tom Lane Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2015 14:44:13 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Further improve documentation of the role-dropping process. In commit 1ea0c73c2 I added a section to user-manag.sgml about how to drop roles that own objects; but as pointed out by Stephen Frost, I neglected that shared objects (databases or tablespaces) may need special treatment. Fix that. Back-patch to supported versions, like the previous patch. --- doc/src/sgml/user-manag.sgml | 25 ++++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/user-manag.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/user-manag.sgml index 1952cac651..d1b6e5990d 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/user-manag.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/user-manag.sgml @@ -431,17 +431,23 @@ ALTER TABLE bobs_table OWNER TO alice; Alternatively, the command can be used to reassign ownership of all objects owned by the role-to-be-dropped - to a single other role. Because REASSIGN OWNED can only - access objects in the current database, it is necessary to run it in each - database that contains objects owned by the role. + to a single other role. Because REASSIGN OWNED cannot access + objects in other databases, it is necessary to run it in each database + that contains objects owned by the role. (Note that the first + such REASSIGN OWNED will change the ownership of any + shared-across-databases objects, that is databases or tablespaces, that + are owned by the role-to-be-dropped.) Once any valuable objects have been transferred to new owners, any remaining objects owned by the role-to-be-dropped can be dropped with - the command. Again, this command can - only access objects in the current database, so it is necessary to run it - in each database that contains objects owned by the role. + the command. Again, this command cannot + access objects in other databases, so it is necessary to run it in each + database that contains objects owned by the role. Also, DROP + OWNED will not drop entire databases or tablespaces, so it is + necessary to do that manually if the role owns any databases or + tablespaces that have not been transferred to new owners. @@ -456,7 +462,6 @@ ALTER TABLE bobs_table OWNER TO alice; In short then, the most general recipe for removing a role that has been used to own objects is: - REASSIGN OWNED BY doomed_role TO successor_role; @@ -465,6 +470,12 @@ DROP OWNED BY doomed_role; DROP ROLE doomed_role; + + When not all owned objects are to be transferred to the same successor + owner, it's best to handle the exceptions manually and then perform + the above steps to mop up. + + If DROP ROLE is attempted while dependent objects still remain, it will issue messages identifying which objects need to be