unable to drop user in PostgreSQL 12.4

by

The question:

I am unable to drop user as I am getting default privileges error.

postgres=# drop user xyz;
ERROR: role "xyz" cannot be dropped because some objects depend on it
DETAIL: owner of default privileges on new functions belonging to role xyz

then I checked default privileges in database,

 postgres=# ddp
Default access privileges
Owner | Schema | Type     | Access privileges
---- -+------- +----------+-------
xyz   |        | function |

Could you please let me know how to revoke this default privileges?

The Solutions:

Below are the methods you can try. The first solution is probably the best. Try others if the first one doesn’t work. Senior developers aren’t just copying/pasting – they read the methods carefully & apply them wisely to each case.

Method 1

You have to grant the “default” default privileges:

ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES FOR ROLE xyz GRANT EXECUTE ON FUNCTIONS TO PUBLIC;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES FOR ROLE xyz GRANT EXECUTE ON FUNCTIONS TO xyz;

Then you should be able to drop the role.

Method 2

This is the safe sequence of commands to drop a role:

Run in every involved database of the DB cluster.

REASSIGN OWNED BY xyz TO postgres;
DROP OWNED BY xyz;

DROP OWNED also gets rid of all privileges and default privileges!

Finally:

DROP ROLE xyz;

More detailed explanation:


All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0

Leave a Comment