---
keywords: [User, Permission, GreptimeDB Enterprise, RBAC, ACL, Authentication]
description: The overview of GreptimeDB User and Permission mechanism.
---

# Built-in User Management

GreptimeDB Enterprise provides a built-in user and permission system backed by
the Metasrv. It supports Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and fine-grained
Access Control Lists (ACLs) to ensure data security and isolation.

## Key Features

- **Built-in User Management**: User accounts and permissions are stored in the
  Metasrv, ensuring consistent management across the cluster.
- **Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)**: Assign global privileges to users,
  controlling operations like `SELECT`, `INSERT`, `CREATE TABLE`, and more.
- **Fine-grained ACLs**: Control table-level access within specific databases
  using exact matches or regular expressions.
- **Dynamic Management**: Manage users dynamically via HTTP APIs without
  restarting the server.
- **Initial Seeding**: Support for seeding initial accounts from a password
  file at startup.

## Configuration and Explanation

This section walks through how to enable the enterprise user provider and
perform basic user management.

### 1. Enable User Provider

To use the enterprise user and permission system, enable the
`greptime_ee_user_provider` in the component that receives client requests.
Configure it on the standalone server in standalone mode, or on each frontend
node in cluster mode.

The user provider value is:

```text
greptime_ee_user_provider:<path-to-password-file>
```

The password file is optional and is used only for initial account seeding. To
enable the provider without seeding users, use `greptime_ee_user_provider:`.
The trailing colon `:` is required by the configuration parser.

**Standalone command line:**

```shell
./greptime standalone start \
  --user-provider=greptime_ee_user_provider:/path/to/passwords.txt
```

**Standalone configuration file:**

```toml
user_provider = "greptime_ee_user_provider:/path/to/passwords.txt"
```

```shell
./greptime standalone start \
  -c /path/to/standalone.toml
```

**Frontend command line:**

```shell
./greptime frontend start \
  --metasrv-addrs=127.0.0.1:3002 \
  --user-provider=greptime_ee_user_provider:/path/to/passwords.txt
```

**Frontend configuration file:**

```toml
user_provider = "greptime_ee_user_provider:/path/to/passwords.txt"

[meta_client]
metasrv_addrs = ["127.0.0.1:3002"]
```

Then start frontend with the configuration file:

```shell
./greptime frontend start \
  -c /path/to/frontend.toml
```

### 2. Initial Account Seeding (Optional)

The password file uses the following format:
`<username>[:<role>]=<password>`

Available roles:
- `admin`: Full privileges, including user management.
- `readonly` (or `ro`): Read-only access (`SqlSelect`).
- `writeonly` (or `wo`): Write-only access (e.g., `SqlInsert`, `TableCreate`).
- `readwrite` (or `rw`): Both read and write access (default).

Example `passwords.txt`:

```text
# username[:role]=password
superuser:admin=strong_password
alice:ro=alice_pwd
bob:rw=bob_pwd
```

Seeded users are granted full access (`AclType::All`) to the `public` database by default.

Seed accounts are created only once. If a seeded user already exists on later
startups, it is skipped. You can modify seeded users later through the UI.

## Privileges and ACLs

### Global Privileges

Privileges include the following operations:

| Privilege | Description |
| :--- | :--- |
| `TableCreate` | Create new tables |
| `TableAlter` | Alter existing tables |
| `TableDrop` | Drop tables |
| `SqlSelect` | Execute `SELECT` queries |
| `SqlInsert` | Execute `INSERT` operations |
| `SqlDelete` | Execute `DELETE` operations |
| `FlowCreate` | Create flows |
| `FlowDrop` | Drop flows |
| `DatabaseCreate` | Create databases |
| `DatabaseAlter` | Alter databases |
| `DatabaseDrop` | Drop databases |
| `Admin` | Full administrative privileges |
| `TriggerCreate` | Create triggers |
| `TriggerDrop` | Drop triggers |
| `TriggerAlter` | Alter triggers |

#### Predefined Role Privileges

When using the password file for seeding, the predefined roles map to the
following privilege combinations:

| Role | Privileges |
| :--- | :--- |
| `admin` | All privileges |
| `readonly` / `ro` | `SqlSelect` |
| `writeonly` / `wo` | `SqlInsert`, `SqlDelete`, `TableCreate`, `TableAlter`, `TableDrop`, `FlowCreate`, `FlowDrop`, `TriggerCreate`, `TriggerDrop`, `TriggerAlter`, `DatabaseCreate`, `DatabaseAlter`, `DatabaseDrop` |
| `readwrite` / `rw` | `readonly` + `writeonly` privileges |

### Access Control Lists (ACLs)

ACLs provide table-level security within a database. Each ACL entry is scoped to a
database and controls which tables in that database the user can access.

The `all` ACL grants access to every table in the database. Use it when a user
should be able to read or write all current and future tables in that database,
subject to the user's global privileges.

The `match` ACL grants access to one table by exact name. Use it when a user
should only access a specific table and should not automatically gain access to
other tables with similar names.

The `regex` ACL grants access to tables whose names match a regular expression.
Use it when tables follow a naming convention and should be managed as a group.
For example, `mem_.*` matches table names that start with `mem_`,
`.*_metrics` matches table names that end with `_metrics`, and
`sensor_[0-9]+` matches names such as `sensor_1` and `sensor_2024`.
Regex ACLs are evaluated against table names within the configured database, so
use specific patterns when possible to avoid granting access to more tables than
intended.

## Validation Rules

### Username

Usernames must:
- Start with a letter (`a-z` or `A-Z`)
- Contain only letters, digits, and underscores
- Match the pattern `[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*`

### Password

Password validation depends on how the user is created or updated:

- Seeded account passwords must not be empty.
- Passwords created or updated through the UI must be 6 to 64 characters long.

## User Management in the Enterprise Dashboard

After you enable `greptime_ee_user_provider`, both GreptimeDB and the
Enterprise Dashboard require users to log in with an account.
The following screenshot shows the Enterprise Dashboard login page:

<p align="center">
    <img src="/ent_user/login.png" alt="login page"/>
</p>

You can log in with the automatically created admin account or with an account
defined in the seeding file.

Only accounts with the `Admin` privilege can see the database management menu.
Non-admin accounts can only access the query page, similar to the open-source
dashboard.

After logging in as an admin user, click `User Management` in the lower-left
corner to open the user management page:

<p align="center">
    <img src="/ent_user/list.png" alt="login page"/>
</p>

This page lists all current users. From here, you can:

1. Create users
2. Update existing users
3. Delete users

The following screenshot shows the form for creating a user:

<p align="center">
    <img src="/ent_user/create.png" alt="login page"/>
</p>

In this form, you can configure:

1. The username
2. The password
3. Whether the account has the `Admin` privilege. Non-admin users are granted
   the `readwrite` privilege.
4. The account ACL list

The ACL form has two tabs. You can select an exact table, select an entire
database to grant full-database access, or use a regular expression to grant
access to a range of tables. The following screenshot shows the regular
expression form:

<p align="center">
    <img src="/ent_user/regex.png" alt="login page"/>
</p>

## Reference

- **Admin Account**: On the system's first startup, GreptimeDB Enterprise
  automatically creates a default `admin` account if it doesn't already exist.
  - If the environment variable `GREPTIME_ENTERPRISE_ADMIN_PASSWORD` is set,
    it uses that value as the password.
  - If the environment variable is not set, it generates a random UUID as the
    password.
- **Checking Auto-generated Password**: If a random password was generated,
  you can find it in the GreptimeDB log files. Search for a message like:
  ```text
  Created admin user with auto-generated password <UUID>
  ```
- **Resetting the Admin Password**: You can reset the `admin` password using the
  CLI without manually editing the KV store. The command reads backend storage
  settings from a Metasrv config file and supports the standard
  `GREPTIMEDB_METASRV__...` environment variable overrides.
  ```shell
  ./greptime-ee cli user admin-password \
    --new-password <new-password> \
    --config-file /path/to/metasrv.toml
  ```
  This command must be invoked from a Metasrv instance. The `--config-file`
  should point to the same Metasrv config file used by your Metasrv (or
  standalone) deployment, so the CLI can locate the correct backend storage
  (etcd, MySQL, or PostgreSQL).
- **Persistence**: User information is persisted in the Metasrv's KV store,
  making it available across all frontend nodes in a cluster.
- **Admin Protection**: The built-in `admin` user cannot be deleted via the API.
