Oracle ALTER ROLE

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Oracle ALTER ROLE statement to modify the authorization needed to enable a role.

Introduction to Oracle ALTER ROLE statement

The ALTER ROLE statement allows you to modify the authorization needed to enable a role.

Here is the basic syntax of the ALTER ROLE statement:

ALTER ROLE role_name 
    { NOT IDENTIFIED | IDENTIFIED BY password }

In this syntax:

• First, specify the name of the role that you want to change.
• Second, use the corresponding action such as NOT IDENTIFIED to not using a password, or IDENTIFIED BY password to change the password of the role.

To execute the ALTER ROLE statement, your account must either have been granted the role with ADMIN OPTION or have the ALTER ANY ROLE system privilege.

Note that it is not possible to change a NOT IDENTIFIED role to a IDENTIFIED BY password role if the role has been granted to another role.

Oracle ALTER ROLE statement example

Let’s take an example of using the ALTER ROLE statement to change an IDENTIFIED BY password role to a NOT IDENTIFIED role.

First, create a new role called db_designer:

CREATE ROLE db_designer IDENTIFIED BY abcd1234;

Second, grant the CREATE TABLE and CREATE VIEW system privileges to the db_designer role:

GRANT CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW TO db_designer;

Third, create a user called michael:

CREATE USER michael IDENTIFIED BY xyz123;

Fourth, grant the db_designer and connect roles to the user michael:

GRANT db_designer, connect TO michael;

The following query returns the roles granted to the user michael:

SELECT * 
FROM dba_role_privs 
WHERE grantee = 'MICHAEL';

Fifth, log in to the Oracle Database using the user michael and set the role of michael to db_designer:

SET ROLE db_designer 
IDENTIFIED BY abcd1234;

Sixth, go back to the first session and change the role to a NOT IDENTIFIED role:

ALTER ROLE db_designer NOT IDENTIFIED;

Seventh, go the user michael’s session, and reissue the SET ROLE statement again. This time we don’t need a password since the role has been changed:

SET ROLE db_designer;

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the Oracle ALTER ROLE statement to change the authorization needed to enable a role.