db.createRole()

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Definition

Compatibility
Behavior
Required Access
Example

Definition

db.createRole(role, writeConcern)

Creates a role in a database. You can specify privileges for the role by explicitly listing the privileges or by having the role inherit privileges from other roles or both. The role applies to the database on which you run the method.

Important

mongosh Method

This page documents a mongosh method. This is not the documentation for database commands or language-specific drivers, such as Node.js.

For the database command, see the createRole command.

For MongoDB API drivers, refer to the language-specific MongoDB driver documentation.

The db.createRole() method accepts the following arguments:

Parameter	Type	Description
`role`	document	A document containing the name of the role and the role definition.
`writeConcern`	document	Optional. The level of write concern for the operation. See Write Concern Specification.

The role document has the following form:

{
  role: "<name>",
  privileges: [
     { resource: { <resource> }, actions: [ "<action>", ... ] },
     ...
  ],
  roles: [
     { role: "<role>", db: "<database>" } | "<role>",
      ...
  ],
  authenticationRestrictions: [
    {
      clientSource: ["<IP>" | "<CIDR range>", ...],
      serverAddress: ["<IP>" | "<CIDR range>", ...]
    },
    ...
  ]
}

The role document has the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
`role`	string	The name of the new role.
`privileges`	array	The privileges to grant the role. A privilege consists of a resource and permitted actions. For the syntax of a privilege, see the `privileges` array. You must include the `privileges` field. Use an empty array to specify no privileges.
`roles`	array	An array of roles from which this role inherits privileges. You must include the `roles` field. Use an empty array to specify no roles to inherit from.
`authenticationRestrictions`	array	Optional. The authentication restrictions the server enforces on the role. Specifies a list of IP addresses and CIDR ranges users granted this role are allowed to connect to and/or which they can connect from.

Roles

In the roles field, you can specify both built-in roles and user-defined roles.

To specify a role that exists in the same database where db.createRole() runs, you can either specify the role with the name of the role:

"readWrite"

Or you can specify the role with a document, as in:

{ role: "<role>", db: "<database>" }

To specify a role that exists in a different database, specify the role with a document.

Authentication Restrictions

The authenticationRestrictions document can contain only the following fields. The server throws an error if the authenticationRestrictions document contains an unrecognized field:

Field Name	Value	Description
`clientSource`	Array of IP addresses and/or CIDR ranges	If present, when authenticating a user, the server verifies that the client's IP address is either in the given list or belongs to a CIDR range in the list. If the client's IP address is not present, the server does not authenticate the user.
`serverAddress`	Array of IP addresses and/or CIDR ranges	A list of IP addresses or CIDR ranges to which the client can connect. If present, the server will verify that the client's connection was accepted via an IP address in the given list. If the connection was accepted via an unrecognized IP address, the server does not authenticate the user.

Important

If a user inherits multiple roles with incompatible authentication restrictions, that user becomes unusable.

For example, if a user inherits one role in which the clientSource field is ["198.51.100.0"] and another role in which the clientSource field is ["203.0.113.0"] the server is unable to authenticate the user.

For more information on authentication in MongoDB, see Authentication.

Compatibility

This method is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

Important

This command is not supported in MongoDB Atlas clusters. For information on Atlas support for all commands, see Unsupported Commands.

MongoDB Enterprise: The subscription-based, self-managed version of MongoDB
MongoDB Community: The source-available, free-to-use, and self-managed version of MongoDB

Behavior

Replica set

If run on a replica set, db.createRole() is executed using "majority" write concern by default.

Scope

Except for roles created in the admin database, a role can only include privileges that apply to its database and can only inherit from other roles in its database.

A role created in the admin database can include privileges that apply to the admin database, other databases or to the cluster resource, and can inherit from roles in other databases as well as the admin database.

The db.createRole() method returns a duplicate role error if the role already exists in the database.

Required Access

To create a role in a database, you must have:

the createRole action on that database resource.
the grantRole action on that database to specify privileges for the new role as well as to specify roles to inherit from.

Built-in roles userAdmin and userAdminAnyDatabase provide createRole and grantRole actions on their respective resources.

To create a role with authenticationRestrictions specified, you must have the setAuthenticationRestriction action on the database resource which the role is created.

Example

The following db.createRole() method creates the myClusterwideAdmin role on the admin database:

use admin
db.createRole(
   {
     role: "myClusterwideAdmin",
     privileges: [
       { resource: { cluster: true }, actions: [ "addShard" ] },
       { resource: { db: "config", collection: "" }, actions: [ "find", "update", "insert", "remove" ] },
       { resource: { db: "users", collection: "usersCollection" }, actions: [ "update", "insert", "remove" ] },
       { resource: { db: "", collection: "" }, actions: [ "find" ] }
     ],
     roles: [
       { role: "read", db: "admin" }
     ]
   },
   { w: "majority" , wtimeout: 5000 }
)

Back

Role Management

db.dropRole