GRANT priv_type [(column_list)] [, priv_type [(column_list)]] ...
    ON [object_type] {tbl_name | * | *.* | db_name.*}
    TO user [IDENTIFIED BY [PASSWORD] 'password']
        [, user [IDENTIFIED BY [PASSWORD] 'password']] ...
    [REQUIRE
        NONE |
        [{SSL| X509}]
        [CIPHER 'cipher' [AND]]
        [ISSUER 'issuer' [AND]]
        [SUBJECT 'subject']]
    [WITH with_option [with_option] ...]

object_type =
    TABLE
  | FUNCTION
  | PROCEDURE

with_option =
    GRANT OPTION
  | MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR count
  | MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR count
  | MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR count
  | MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS count

The GRANT statement enables system administrators to create MySQL user accounts and to grant rights to from accounts. To use GRANT, you must have the GRANT OPTION privilege, and you must have the privileges that you are granting. The REVOKE statement is related and enables administrators to remove account privileges. See Section 13.5.1.5, “REVOKE Syntax”.

MySQL account information is stored in the tables of the mysql database. This database and the access control system are discussed extensively in Chapter 5, Database Administration, which you should consult for additional details.

Important: Some releases of MySQL introduce changes to the structure of the grant tables to add new privileges or features. Whenever you update to a new version of MySQL, you should update your grant tables to make sure that they have the current structure so that you can take advantage of any new capabilities. See Section 5.5.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.

If the grant tables hold privilege rows that contain mixed-case database or table names and the lower_case_table_names system variable is set to a non-zero value, REVOKE cannot be used to revoke these privileges. It will be necessary to manipulate the grant tables directly. (GRANT will not create such rows when lower_case_table_names is set, but such rows might have been created prior to setting the variable.)

Privileges can be granted at several levels:

The object_type clause should be specified as TABLE, FUNCTION, or PROCEDURE when the following object is a table, a stored function, or a stored procedure.

For the GRANT and REVOKE statements, priv_type can be specified as any of the following:

The EVENT and TRIGGER privileges were added in MySQL 5.1.6. A trigger is associated with a table, so to create or drop a trigger, you must have the TRIGGER privilege for the table, not the trigger. (Before MySQL 5.1.6, the SUPER privilege was required to create or drop triggers.)

The REFERENCES privilege currently is unused.

USAGE can be specified when you want to create a user that has no privileges.

Use SHOW GRANTS to determine what privileges an account has. See Section 13.5.4.14, “SHOW GRANTS Syntax”.

You can assign global privileges by using ON *.* syntax or database-level privileges by using ON db_name.* syntax. If you specify ON * and you have selected a default database, the privileges are granted in that database. (Warning: If you specify ON * and you have not selected a default database, the privileges granted are global.)

The FILE, PROCESS, RELOAD, REPLICATION CLIENT, REPLICATION SLAVE, SHOW DATABASES, SHUTDOWN, and SUPER privileges are administrative privileges that can only be granted globally (using ON *.* syntax).

Other privileges can be granted globally or at more specific levels.

The priv_type values that you can specify for a table are SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, GRANT OPTION, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW and TRIGGER.

The priv_type values that you can specify for a column (that is, when you use a column_list clause) are SELECT, INSERT, and UPDATE.

The priv_type values that you can specify at the routine level are ALTER ROUTINE, EXECUTE, and GRANT OPTION. CREATE ROUTINE is not a routine-level privilege because you must have this privilege to create a routine in the first place.

For the global, database, table, and routine levels, GRANT ALL assigns only the privileges that exist at the level you are granting. For example, GRANT ALL ON db_name.* is a database-level statement, so it does not grant any global-only privileges such as FILE.

MySQL allows you to grant privileges even on database objects that do not exist. In such cases, the privileges to be granted must include the CREATE privilege. This behavior is by design, and is intended to enable the database administrator to prepare user accounts and privileges for database objects that are to be created at a later time.

Important: MySQL does not automatically revoke any privileges when you drop a table or database. However, if you drop a routine, any routine-level privileges granted for that routine are revoked.

Note: the ‘_’ and ‘%’ wildcards are allowed when specifying database names in GRANT statements that grant privileges at the global or database levels. This means, for example, that if you want to use a ‘_’ character as part of a database name, you should specify it as ‘\_’ in the GRANT statement, to prevent the user from being able to access additional databases matching the wildcard pattern; for example, GRANT ... ON `foo\_bar`.* TO ....

To accommodate granting rights to users from arbitrary hosts, MySQL supports specifying the user value in the form user_name@host_name. If a user_name or host_name value is legal as an unquoted identifier, you need not quote it. However, quotes are necessary to specify a user_name string containing special characters (such as ‘-’), or a host_name string containing special characters or wildcard characters (such as ‘%’); for example, 'test-user'@'test-hostname'. Quote the username and hostname separately.

You can specify wildcards in the hostname. For example, user_name@'%.loc.gov' applies to user_name for any host in the loc.gov domain, and user_name@'144.155.166.%' applies to user_name for any host in the 144.155.166 class C subnet.

The simple form user_name is a synonym for user_name@'%'.

MySQL does not support wildcards in usernames. Anonymous users are defined by inserting entries with User='' into the mysql.user table or by creating a user with an empty name with the GRANT statement:

GRANT ALL ON test.* TO ''@'localhost' ...

When specifying quoted values, quote database, table, column, and routine names as identifiers, using backticks (‘`’). Quote hostnames, usernames, and passwords as strings, using single quotes (‘'’).

Warning: If you allow anonymous users to connect to the MySQL server, you should also grant privileges to all local users as user_name@localhost. Otherwise, the anonymous user account for localhost in the mysql.user table (created during MySQL installation) is used when named users try to log in to the MySQL server from the local machine. For details, see Section 5.7.5, “Access Control, Stage 1: Connection Verification”.

You can determine whether this applies to you by executing the following query, which lists any anonymous users:

SELECT Host, User FROM mysql.user WHERE User='';

If you want to delete the local anonymous user account to avoid the problem just described, use these statements:

DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

GRANT supports hostnames up to 60 characters long. Database, table, column, and routine names can be up to 64 characters. Usernames can be up to 16 characters. Note: The allowable length for usernames cannot be changed by altering the mysql.user table, and attempting to do so results in unpredictable behavior which may even make it impossible for users to log in to the MySQL server. You should never alter any of the tables in the mysql database in any manner whatsoever except by means of the procedure prescribed by MySQL AB that is described in Section 5.5.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.

The privileges for a table, column, or routine are formed additively as the logical OR of the privileges at each of the privilege levels. For example, if the mysql.user table specifies that a user has a global SELECT privilege, the privilege cannot be denied by an entry at the database, table, or column level.

The privileges for a column can be calculated as follows:

global privileges
OR (database privileges AND host privileges)
OR table privileges
OR column privileges
OR routine privileges

In most cases, you grant rights to a user at only one of the privilege levels, so life is not normally this complicated. The details of the privilege-checking procedure are presented in Section 5.7, “The MySQL Access Privilege System”.

If you grant privileges for a username/hostname combination that does not exist in the mysql.user table, an entry is added and remains there until deleted with a DELETE statement. In other words, GRANT may create user table entries, but REVOKE does not remove them; you must do that explicitly using DROP USER or DELETE.

Warning: If you create a new user but do not specify an IDENTIFIED BY clause, the user has no password. This is very insecure. However, you can enable the NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER SQL mode to keep GRANT from creating a new user if it would otherwise do so, unless IDENTIFIED BY is given to provide the new user a non-empty password.

If a new user is created or if you have global grant privileges, the user's password is set to the password specified by the IDENTIFIED BY clause, if one is given. If the user already had a password, this is replaced by the new one.

Passwords can also be set with the SET PASSWORD statement. See Section 13.5.1.6, “SET PASSWORD Syntax”.

In the IDENTIFIED BY clause, the password should be given as the literal password value. It is unnecessary to use the PASSWORD() function as it is for the SET PASSWORD statement. For example:

GRANT ... IDENTIFIED BY 'mypass';

If you do not want to send the password in clear text and you know the hashed value that PASSWORD() would return for the password, you can specify the hashed value preceded by the keyword PASSWORD:

GRANT ...
IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*6C8989366EAF75BB670AD8EA7A7FC1176A95CEF4';

In a C program, you can get the hashed value by using the make_scrambled_password() C API function.

If you grant privileges for a database, an entry in the mysql.db table is created if needed. If all privileges for the database are removed with REVOKE, this entry is deleted.

The SHOW DATABASES privilege enables the account to see database names by issuing the SHOW DATABASE statement. Accounts that do not have this privilege see only databases for which they have some privileges, and cannot use the statement at all if the server was started with the --skip-show-database option.

If a user has no privileges for a table, the table name is not displayed when the user requests a list of tables (for example, with a SHOW TABLES statement).

The WITH GRANT OPTION clause gives the user the ability to give to other users any privileges the user has at the specified privilege level. You should be careful to whom you give the GRANT OPTION privilege, because two users with different privileges may be able to join privileges!

You cannot grant another user a privilege which you yourself do not have; the GRANT OPTION privilege enables you to assign only those privileges which you yourself possess.

Be aware that when you grant a user the GRANT OPTION privilege at a particular privilege level, any privileges the user possesses (or may be given in the future) at that level can also be granted by that user to other users. Suppose that you grant a user the INSERT privilege on a database. If you then grant the SELECT privilege on the database and specify WITH GRANT OPTION, that user can give to other users not only the SELECT privilege, but also INSERT. If you then grant the UPDATE privilege to the user on the database, the user can grant INSERT, SELECT, and UPDATE.

For a non-administrative user, you should not grant the ALTER privilege globally or for the mysql database. If you do that, the user can try to subvert the privilege system by renaming tables!

The MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR count, MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR count, and MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR count options limit the number of queries, updates, and logins a user can perform during any given one-hour period. If count is 0 (the default), this means that there is no limitation for that user.

The MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS count option limits the maximum number of simultaneous connections that the account can make. If count is 0 (the default), the max_user_connections system variable determines the number of simultaneous connections for the account.

Note: To specify any of these resource-limit options for an existing user without affecting existing privileges, use GRANT USAGE ON *.* ... WITH MAX_....

See Section 5.8.4, “Limiting Account Resources”.

MySQL can check X509 certificate attributes in addition to the usual authentication that is based on the username and password. To specify SSL-related options for a MySQL account, use the REQUIRE clause of the GRANT statement. (For background information on the use of SSL with MySQL, see Section 5.8.7, “Using Secure Connections”.)

There are a number of different possibilities for limiting connection types for a given account:

The SUBJECT, ISSUER, and CIPHER options can be combined in the REQUIRE clause like this:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test.* TO 'root'@'localhost'
  IDENTIFIED BY 'goodsecret'
  REQUIRE SUBJECT '/C=EE/ST=Some-State/L=Tallinn/
    O=MySQL demo client certificate/
    CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]'
  AND ISSUER '/C=FI/ST=Some-State/L=Helsinki/
    O=MySQL Finland AB/CN=Tonu Samuel/[email protected]'
  AND CIPHER 'EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA';

The AND keyword is optional between REQUIRE options.

The order of the options does not matter, but no option can be specified twice.

When mysqld starts, all privileges are read into memory. For details, see Section 5.7.7, “When Privilege Changes Take Effect”.

Note that if you are using table, column, or routine privileges for even one user, the server examines table, column, and routine privileges for all users and this slows down MySQL a bit. Similarly, if you limit the number of queries, updates, or connections for any users, the server must monitor these values.

The biggest differences between the standard SQL and MySQL versions of GRANT are: