15.7.1.2 CREATE ROLE Statement

CREATE ROLE [IF NOT EXISTS] role [, role ] ...

CREATE ROLE creates one or more roles, which are named collections of privileges. To use this statement, you must have the global CREATE ROLE or CREATE USER privilege. When the read_only system variable is enabled, CREATE ROLE additionally requires the CONNECTION_ADMIN privilege (or the deprecated SUPER privilege).

A role when created is locked, has no password, and is assigned the default authentication plugin. (These role attributes can be changed later with the ALTER USER statement, by users who have the global CREATE USER privilege.)

CREATE ROLE either succeeds for all named roles or rolls back and has no effect if any error occurs. By default, an error occurs if you try to create a role that already exists. If the IF NOT EXISTS clause is given, the statement produces a warning for each named role that already exists, rather than an error.

The statement is written to the binary log if it succeeds, but not if it fails; in that case, rollback occurs and no changes are made. A statement written to the binary log includes all named roles. If the IF NOT EXISTS clause is given, this includes even roles that already exist and were not created.

Each role name uses the format described in Section 8.2.5, “Specifying Role Names”. For example:

CREATE ROLE 'admin', 'developer';
CREATE ROLE 'webapp'@'localhost';

The host name part of the role name, if omitted, defaults to '%'.

For role usage examples, see Section 8.2.10, “Using Roles”.