Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13. User Accounts and Privileges
We've addressed user accounts and privileges a few times up until this point, but in this
chapter we're going to thoroughly discuss this crucial topic. Given the importance of secur-
ity in any data-related activity, some readers might feel that this topic should have been
covered thoroughly at the beginning of the topic, and there's some logic to support that ap-
proach. But it's much more interesting to work with databases first before spending a lot of
time on the less exciting administrative tasks such as user privileges and security. Plus, it's
easier to understand the importance of user privileges, and to think about the various ways
to set privileges, after you have a firm understanding of tables and other elements of a data-
base. You're now ready to consider user accounts and related topics, and will have a better
appreciation of what's covered here than you would have if we had explored this subject
earlier in the topic.
We'll start by looking at the basics of creating a user account and granting privileges. Then
we'll go through the details of restricting access and granting privileges for various data-
base components. Once you understand these ways to restrict access, we'll look at what
privileges to give some common administrative user accounts. We'll then look at how to re-
voke privileges and delete user accounts, as well as how to change passwords and rename
user accounts.
