> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.risingwave.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Access control

> RisingWave uses a user-based access control to handle authentication and authorization. Privileges can be granted to or revoked by users to control what actions can be performed on different object levels.

RisingWave provides multiple authentication methods to verify user identities, including password-based authentication, OAuth, and LDAP. For information on configuring LDAP authentication against external directory services, see [LDAP authentication](/operate/ldap-authentication).

When creating a user, the administrator of an organization can determine the system-level permissions and set a password. The system permissions and the user names can be revised with the `ALTER USER` command. For details about the system permissions, see [System permissions](/sql/commands/sql-create-user#syntax-for-creating-a-new-user).

Database privileges can be configured later by using `GRANT` and `REVOKE` commands. The privileges are managed at these object levels:

* Database
* Schema
* Table
* Source
* Materialized view

For database privileges that can be applied to each of the object levels, see [Privileges](#privileges).

## Users

RisingWave automatically creates three superuser accounts during cluster initialization:

* `root` - Default superuser account
* `postgres` - PostgreSQL-compatible superuser account
* `rwadmin` - Reserved superuser account for cloud control plane operations

<Note>
  The `rwadmin` user cannot be altered, renamed, or dropped to ensure system security. Only the `rwadmin` user itself can change its password.
</Note>

### Create users

```sql Syntax theme={null}
CREATE USER user_name [ [ WITH ] system_permission [ ... ]['PASSWORD' { password | NULL }] ];
```

For details about system permissions, see [System permissions](/sql/commands/sql-create-user#syntax-for-creating-a-new-user).

Create a user with default permissions:

```sql theme={null}
CREATE USER user_name;
```

Create a user and permit it to create databases, and set a password for it:

```sql theme={null}
CREATE USER user001 WITH CREATEDB PASSWORD '1234abcd';
```

### Alter users

You can alter the system permissions, password, or name of a user by using the `ALTER USER` command.

The following statement modifies the password and initial permissions of `user001`.

```sql theme={null}
ALTER USER user001 WITH NOSUPERUSER CREATEDB PASSWORD '4d2Df1ee5';
```

The following statement renames `user1` to `user001`.

```sql theme={null}
ALTER USER user1 RENAME TO user001;
```

## Privileges

See the table below for the privileges available in RisingWave and the corresponding object levels that they can apply to.

| Privilege | Description                                           | Object Level                     |
| :-------- | :---------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------- |
| SELECT    | Permission to retrieve data from a relation object.   | Table, Source, Materialized View |
| INSERT    | Permission to add new rows to a table.                | Table                            |
| UPDATE    | Permission to modify existing data in a table.        | Table                            |
| DELETE    | Permission to remove rows from a table.               | Table                            |
| CREATE    | Permission to create new objects within the database. | Schema, Database                 |
| CONNECT   | Permission to connect to a database.                  | Database                         |
| USAGE     | Permission to use or look up an object's members.     | Schema                           |

You use the `GRANT` command to grant privileges to a user, and the `REVOKE` command to revoke privileges from a user. For the syntaxes of these two commands, see [GRANT](/sql/commands/sql-grant) and [REVOKE](/sql/commands/sql-revoke).

This statement grants the `SELECT` privilege for materialized view `mv1`, which is in schema `schema1` of database `db1`, to user `user1`. `user1` is able to grant the `SELECT` privilege to other users.

```sql theme={null}
GRANT SELECT
ON MATERIALIZED VIEW mv1 IN SCHEMA db1.schema1
TO user1 WITH GRANT OPTION GRANTED BY user;
```

This statement grants the `SELECT` and `UPDATE` privileges for table `t1` to user `user1`.

```sql theme={null}
GRANT SELECT, UPDATE
ON TABLE t1
TO user1;
```

## Metadata visibility in SHOW commands

Catalog-backed `SHOW` commands follow access control. To list objects with commands such as `SHOW TABLES`, `SHOW SOURCES`, `SHOW SINKS`, `SHOW VIEWS`, `SHOW MATERIALIZED VIEWS`, `SHOW CONNECTIONS`, or `SHOW SECRETS`, you must have `USAGE` on the schema and the relevant privilege on each object. Having schema `USAGE` alone does not reveal object names.

Known-name metadata commands such as `SHOW COLUMNS FROM <object_name>` and `SHOW INDEXES FROM <table_name>` also honor object-level permissions and do not expose metadata for hidden objects.

For connection metadata, referenced secrets are only shown by name when you can access both the secret object and the schema that contains it. Otherwise, RisingWave redacts the secret reference in `SHOW CONNECTIONS` and `rw_catalog.rw_connections`.