Metadata Privileges

A superuser has unrestricted access to all database metadata. Other users have significantly reduced access to metadata based on their privileges, as follows:

Type of Metadata User Access

Catalog objects:

  • Tables
  • Columns
  • Constraints
  • Sequences
  • External Procedures
  • Projections
  • ROS containers
  • WOS

Users must possess USAGE privilege on the schema and any type of access (SELECT) or modify privilege on the object to see catalog metadata about the object. See also Schema Privileges.

For internal objects like projections, WOS and ROS containers that don't have access privileges directly associated with them, the user must possess the requisite privileges on the associated schema and table objects instead. For example, to see whether a table has any data in the WOS, you need to have USAGE on the table schema and at least SELECT on the table itself. See also Table Privileges and Projection Privileges.

User sessions and functions, and system tables related to these sessions

Users can only access information about their own, current sessions.

The following functions provide restricted functionality to users:

The system table, SESSIONS, provides restricted functionality to users.

Storage locations

Users require READ permissions to copy data from storage locations.

Only a superuser can add or retire storage locations.