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lancedb/docs/web/governance/authorization.mdx
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Jack Ye 52684d50b9 docs: flip ownership of View/SQL-client/FTS-SQL/AuthZ/AuthN to OSS, restructure SQL Reference
OSS docs now own the full usage content for features that only run against
an Enterprise deployment, since the client interface itself lives here;
Enterprise docs keep only the parts specific to its own behavior. Sophon's
overlay for these five pages is dropped since the OSS versions are now the
complete reference.

SQL Reference is restructured to match an object-type SQL manual (DDL by
object, then DML, then DQL, then Expressions) instead of the old flat,
loosely-ordered page list, absorbing the SQL client-connection guide and
FTS-via-SQL examples into it.
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---
title: "Authorization"
sidebarTitle: "Authorization"
description: "Who may do what: privileges granted on catalog objects to principals, groups, roles, and API keys."
icon: shield-halved
keywords: ["authorization", "authz", "privileges", "rbac", "access control"]
---
<Badge color="red">Enterprise</Badge>
This page describes a LanceDB Enterprise capability. Embedded LanceDB has no
such layer -- access is whatever the object store enforces on the bucket or
directory, which is coarser and has no concept of a table. See
[Architecture](/architecture) for what differs between the two.
[Authentication](/enterprise/authentication) establishes who is calling.
Authorization decides what they may do.
An access control entry grants **one privilege** on **one object** to **one
subject**. Everything below is a consequence of that shape.
## Subjects {#subjects}
A grant is held by one of four kinds of subject, distinguished by a prefix:
| Prefix | Subject |
| --- | --- |
| `p:` | a principal, by ID -- `P:` by name |
| `g:` | a group, by ID -- `G:` by name |
| `r:` | a role |
| `a:` | an API key |
Granting to a group or role rather than a principal is what keeps the entry
count manageable: a principal's effective privileges are the union of what it
holds directly and what it inherits.
Granting to an API key is narrower than granting to the principal that owns
it -- useful when a key is issued for one job and should not carry that
principal's full authority.
## Objects {#objects}
Objects are addressed by kind and path:
```
system
database:db
namespace:db/ns
table:db/ns/table
```
The hierarchy is not decorative. Reaching a table requires `USAGE` on the
namespace containing it and on the database containing that -- a grant on the
table alone is not enough to traverse to it.
## Privileges {#privileges}
| Privilege | Granted on | Allows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `OWNERSHIP` | any object | ownership, conveying full authority |
| `USAGE` | database | accessing the namespaces inside |
| `USAGE` | namespace | accessing the tables inside |
| `SELECT` | table | reading rows |
| `INSERT` | table | appending rows |
| `UPDATE` | table | modifying existing rows |
| `DELETE` | table | deleting rows |
| `CREATE_DATABASE` | system | creating a database |
| `CREATE_NAMESPACE` | database, namespace | creating immediate child namespaces |
| `CREATE_TABLE` | namespace | creating a table in it |
| `CREATE_MATERIALIZED_VIEW` | namespace | creating a materialized view in it |
| `CREATE_VIEW` | namespace | creating a non-materialized view in it |
| `OPERATE` | system | reading server configuration |
The four data privileges map onto the four
[ingestion operations](/ingestion), so a principal that may append but not
modify is expressed by granting `INSERT` without `UPDATE`.
<Note>
`CREATE_MATERIALIZED_VIEW` and `CREATE_VIEW` are separate privileges because
[the two objects differ](/basics/catalog): one stores rows and is refreshed,
the other stores only a query. Granting the ability to create one does not
grant the other.
</Note>
## Creation privileges resolve upward {#upward}
A subtlety worth knowing, because it explains grants that appear to work on
objects that do not exist yet.
When `USAGE` is checked on a database and **no entries exist for it at all**,
the database is assumed not to exist yet, and `CREATE_DATABASE` on `system` is
checked instead. The same applies to the default namespace: absent any
entries, the check falls back to `CREATE_NAMESPACE` on the containing
database.
So a principal holding `CREATE_DATABASE` can act on a database that has not
been created -- which is what makes creation possible at all, and why an empty
ACL set is not the same as a deny.
## Listing grants {#listing}
Entries can be listed filtered by object, by subject, or both:
```
object = table:db/ns/documents
subject = G:data-science
```
Results paginate through a continuation token. One stored `(object, subject)`
tuple carrying several privileges expands into several entries in the
response, so the count reflects privileges rather than tuples.
Listing by subject answers "what can this team reach"; listing by object
answers "who can reach this table". Both are worth running before changing a
grant.