Database role types and permissions

Preview

This feature is in Public Preview in the following regions: us-east-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1, ap-southeast-1, ap-southeast-2, eu-central-1, us-east-2, ap-south-1.

This page explains the Postgres roles that you can use to govern access to a Databricks Lakebase database instance, including their privileges, purpose, and configuration.

Pre-created roles

After a database instance is created, Databricks automatically creates a Postgres role for the user who created the instance.

Role	Description	Inherited privileges
<instance_owner_role>	The Databricks identity of the instance creator (for example, myuser@databricks.com). This role can log in and administer the instance.	Member of databricks_superuser
databricks_superuser	An internal administrative role. Used to configure and manage access across the instance. This role is granted broad privileges and should not be used in automated applications.	Inherits from pg_read_all_data, pg_write_all_data, and pg_monitor.

Role capabilities

Role	LOGIN	CREATEDB	CREATEROLE	BYPASSRLS	Other privileges
databricks_superuser	NOLOGIN	—	—	—	All privileges (with grant) on all databases, schemas, tables, and sequences EXECUTE on pg_stat_statements_reset()
<instance_owner_role>	✅	✅	✅	✅	Owner of the default databricks_postgres database

System roles created by Databricks

In addition to the databricks_superuser and admin roles, Databricks creates system roles required for internal services. These roles are assigned the minimum privileges required for functionality. Modifying them can impact instance behavior.

Role	Purpose
databricks_control_plane	Used by internal Databricks components for management operations
databricks_monitor	Used by internal metrics collection services
databricks_writer_<dbid>	Per-database role used to create and manage synced tables
databricks_reader_<dbid>	Per-database role used to read tables registered in Unity Catalog
databricks_gateway	Used for internal connections for managed data serving services

To learn how roles, privileges, and role memberships work in Postgres, use the following resources in the Postgres documentation:

• Database Roles
• Privileges