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createRole

Definition

createRole

Creates a role and specifies its privileges. The role applies to the database on which you run the command. The createRole command returns a duplicate role error if the role already exists in the database.

The createRole command uses the following syntax:

{ createRole: "<new role>",
  privileges: [
    { resource: { <resource> }, actions: [ "<action>", ... ] },
    ...
  ],
  roles: [
    { role: "<role>", db: "<database>" } | "<role>",
    ...
  ],
  authenticationRestrictions: [
    {
      clientSource: ["<IP>" | "<CIDR range>", ...],
      serverAddress: ["<IP>" | "<CIDR range>", ...]
    },
    ...
  ],
  writeConcern: <write concern document>,
  comment: <any>
}

The createRole command has the following fields:

Field Type Description
createRole 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.

New in version 3.6.

writeConcern document Optional. The level of write concern to apply to this operation. The writeConcern document uses the same fields as the getLastError command.
comment any

Optional. A user-provided comment to attach to this command. Once set, this comment appears alongside records of this command in the following locations:

A comment can be any valid BSON type (string, integer, object, array, etc).

New in version 4.4.

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 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

New in version 3.6.

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.

Behavior

A role’s privileges apply to the database where the role is created. The role can inherit privileges from other roles in its database. A role created on the admin database can include privileges that apply to all databases or to the cluster and can inherit privileges from roles in other databases.

Required Access

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

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 createRole command creates the myClusterwideAdmin role on the admin database:

db.adminCommand({ createRole: "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" }
  ],
  writeConcern: { w: "majority" , wtimeout: 5000 }
})