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updateRole

Definition

updateRole

Updates a user-defined role. The updateRole command must run on the role’s database.

An update to a field completely replaces the previous field’s values. To grant or remove roles or privileges without replacing all values, use one or more of the following commands:

Warning

An update to the privileges or roles array completely replaces the previous array’s values.

The updateRole command uses the following syntax. To update a role, you must provide the privileges array, roles array, or both:

{
  updateRole: "<role>",
  privileges:
      [
        { resource: { <resource> }, actions: [ "<action>", ... ] },
        ...
      ],
  roles:
      [
        { role: "<role>", db: "<database>" } | "<role>",
        ...
      ],
  writeConcern: <write concern document>
}

The updateRole command has the following fields:

Field Type Description
updateRole string The name of the user-defined role role to update.
privileges array Optional. Required if you do not specify roles array. The privileges to grant the role. An update to the privileges array overrides the previous array’s values. For the syntax for specifying a privilege, see the privileges array.
roles array Optional. Required if you do not specify privileges array. The roles from which this role inherits privileges. An update to the roles array overrides the previous array’s values.
writeConcern document Optional. The level of write concern for the update operation. The writeConcern document takes the same fields as the getLastError command.

In the roles field, you can specify both built-in roles and user-defined role.

To specify a role that exists in the same database where updateRole runs, you can either specify the role with the name of the role:

"readWrite"

Or you can specify the role with a document, as in:

{ role: "<role>", db: "<database>" }

To specify a role that exists in a different database, specify the role with a document.

Behavior

A role’s privileges apply to the database where the role is created. The role can inherit privileges from other roles in its database. A role created on the admin database can include privileges that apply to all databases or to the cluster and can inherit privileges from roles in other databases.

Required Access

You must have the revokeRole action on all databases in order to update a role.

You must have the grantRole action on the database of each role in the roles array to update the array.

You must have the grantRole action on the database of each privilege in the privileges array to update the array. If a privilege’s resource spans databases, you must have grantRole on the admin database. A privilege spans databases if the privilege is any of the following:

  • a collection in all databases
  • all collections and all database
  • the cluster resource

Example

The following is an example of the updateRole command that updates the myClusterwideAdmin role on the admin database. While the privileges and the roles arrays are both optional, at least one of the two is required:

db.adminCommand(
   {
     updateRole: "myClusterwideAdmin",
     privileges:
         [
           {
             resource: { db: "", collection: "" },
             actions: [ "find" , "update", "insert", "remove" ]
           }
         ],
     roles:
         [
           { role: "dbAdminAnyDatabase", db: "admin" }
         ],
     writeConcern: { w: "majority" }
   }
)

To view a role’s privileges, use the rolesInfo command.