Subject: Q: GRANT ... WITH ADMIN on PG 17

From: Karsten Hilbert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2025 17:36:07 +0200

Dear all,

PG 17 documentation says that using "WITH ADMIN" allows the
role being added to another group role to grant/revoke
membership in said group to other roles.

Does this imply that an ADMIN role _must_ itself be a member
of the group role it is to maintain membership of ?

The question arises from a scenario where a DBA role would
not need to be a member of a clinical group role but would
be intended to maintain membership of clinical user roles
within that group role.

 From a security point of view the question might be moot
because an ADMIN role could always grant itself membership
in the group role -- but it feels wrong for reasons of
theoretical "correctness".

IOW:

- gm-dbo: user role for a DBA admin (not! superuser)
- gm-bones: user role for a LLAP doctor
- gm-doctors: group role for doctors, upon which are resting
  access permissions for clinical data
- gm-bones is to be a member of gm-doctors in order to access clinical data
- gm-dbo is intended to manage membership of gm-bones in gm-doctors
- however, gm-dbo need not itself be a member of gm-doctors

Is that possible within the current (as of PG 17) framework ?

Thanks,
Karsten
-- 
GPG  40BE 5B0E C98E 1713 AFA6  5BC0 3BEA AC80 7D4F C89B

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From: Adrian Klaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2025 08:46:00 -0700

> membership in said group to other roles.

I would start by reading this:

https://rhaas.blogspot.com/2023/01/surviving-without-superuser-coming-to.html

-- 
Adrian Klaver
[email-masked]

---

From: Karsten Hilbert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2025 17:59:58 +0200

> https://rhaas.blogspot.com/2023/01/surviving-without-superuser-coming-to.html

Thanks, I did, but did not find the answer to: Is there a
way for a role that can manage membership in a group role to
not itself be a member of that group role ?

Best regards,
Karsten