Contents Index Referring to tables owned by groups Special groups

ASA Database Administration Guide
  Managing User IDs and Permissions
    Managing groups

Groups without passwords


Users connected to a group's user ID have certain permissions. This user ID can grant and revoke membership in the group. Also, this user would have ownership permissions over any tables in the database created in the name of the group's user ID.

It is possible to set up a database so that only the DBA handles groups and their database objects, rather than permitting other user IDs to make changes to group membership. You can do this by disallowing connection as the group's user ID when creating the group. To do this, type the GRANT CONNECT statement without a password. Thus:

GRANT CONNECT
TO personnel

creates a user ID personnel. This user ID can be granted group permissions, and other user IDs can be granted membership in the group, inheriting any permissions that have been given to personnel. However, nobody can connect to the database using the personnel user ID, because it has no valid password.

The user ID personnel can be an owner of database objects, even though no user can connect to the database using this user ID. The CREATE TABLE statement, CREATE PROCEDURE statement, and CREATE VIEW statement all allow the owner of the object to be specified as a user other than that executing the statement. Only the DBA can carry out this assignment of ownership.


Contents Index Referring to tables owned by groups Special groups