PostgreSQL: Modify OWNER on all tables simultaneously in PostgreSQL

You can use the REASSIGN OWNED command.

Synopsis:

REASSIGN OWNED BY old_role [, ...] TO new_role

This changes all objects owned by old_role to the new role. You don't have to think about what kind of objects that the user has, they will all be changed. Note that it only applies to objects inside a single database. It does not alter the owner of the database itself either.

It is available back to at least 8.2. Their online documentation only goes that far back.

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See REASSIGN OWNED command

Note: As @trygvis mentions in the answer below, the REASSIGN OWNED command is available since at least version 8.2, and is a much easier method.

Since you're changing the ownership for all tables, you likely want views and sequences too. Here's what I did:

Tables:

for tbl in `psql -qAt -c "select tablename from pg_tables where schemaname = 'public';" YOUR_DB` ; do  psql -c "alter table \"$tbl\" owner to NEW_OWNER" YOUR_DB ; done

Sequences:

for tbl in `psql -qAt -c "select sequence_name from information_schema.sequences where sequence_schema = 'public';" YOUR_DB` ; do  psql -c "alter sequence \"$tbl\" owner to NEW_OWNER" YOUR_DB ; done

Views:

for tbl in `psql -qAt -c "select table_name from information_schema.views where table_schema = 'public';" YOUR_DB` ; do  psql -c "alter view \"$tbl\" owner to NEW_OWNER" YOUR_DB ; done

You could probably DRY that up a bit since the alter statements are identical for all three.

---

This: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-bugs/2007-10/msg00234.php is also a nice and fast solution, and works for multiple schemas in one database:

Tables

SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| schemaname || '."' || tablename ||'" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY schemaname, tablename;

Sequences

SELECT 'ALTER SEQUENCE '|| sequence_schema || '."' || sequence_name ||'" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM information_schema.sequences WHERE NOT sequence_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY sequence_schema, sequence_name;

Views

SELECT 'ALTER VIEW '|| table_schema || '."' || table_name ||'" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM information_schema.views WHERE NOT table_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY table_schema, table_name;

Materialized Views

Based on this answer

SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| oid::regclass::text ||' OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM pg_class WHERE relkind = 'm'
ORDER BY oid;

This generates all the required ALTER TABLE / ALTER SEQUENCE / ALTER VIEW statements, copy these and paste them back into plsql to run them.

Check your work in psql by doing:

\dt *.*
\ds *.*
\dv *.*

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If you want to do it in one sql statement, you need to define an exec() function as mentioned in http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Dynamic_DDL

CREATE FUNCTION exec(text) returns text language plpgsql volatile
  AS $f$
    BEGIN
      EXECUTE $1;
      RETURN $1;
    END;
$f$;

Then you can execute this query, it will change the owner of tables, sequences and views:

SELECT exec('ALTER TABLE ' || quote_ident(s.nspname) || '.' ||
            quote_ident(s.relname) || ' OWNER TO $NEWUSER')
  FROM (SELECT nspname, relname
          FROM pg_class c JOIN pg_namespace n ON (c.relnamespace = n.oid) 
         WHERE nspname NOT LIKE E'pg\\_%' AND 
               nspname <> 'information_schema' AND 
               relkind IN ('r','S','v') ORDER BY relkind = 'S') s;

$NEWUSER is the postgresql new name of the new owner.

In most circumstances you need to be superuser to execute this. You can avoid that by changing the owner from your own user to a role group you are a member of.

Thanks to RhodiumToad on #postgresql for helping out with this.

---

is very simple

su - postgres psql REASSIGN OWNED BY [old_user] TO [new_user]; \c [your database] REASSIGN OWNED BY [old_user] TO [new_user];

done.

---

I like this one since it modifies tables, views, sequences and functions owner of a certain schema in one go (in one sql statement), without creating a function and you can use it directly in PgAdmin III and psql:

(Tested in PostgreSql v9.2)

DO $$DECLARE r record;
DECLARE
    v_schema varchar := 'public';
    v_new_owner varchar := '<NEW_OWNER>';
BEGIN
    FOR r IN 
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.tables where table_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || sequence_schema || '"."' || sequence_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.sequences where sequence_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.views where table_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER FUNCTION "'||nsp.nspname||'"."'||p.proname||'"('||pg_get_function_identity_arguments(p.oid)||') OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from pg_proc p join pg_namespace nsp ON p.pronamespace = nsp.oid where nsp.nspname = v_schema
    LOOP
        EXECUTE r.a;
    END LOOP;
END$$;

Based on answers provided by @rkj, @AlannaRose, @SharoonThomas, @user3560574 and this answer by @a_horse_with_no_name

Thank's a lot.

Better yet: Also change database and schema owner.

DO $$DECLARE r record;
DECLARE
    v_schema varchar := 'public';
    v_new_owner varchar := 'admin_ctes';
BEGIN
    FOR r IN 
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.tables where table_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || sequence_schema || '"."' || sequence_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.sequences where sequence_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.views where table_schema = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER FUNCTION "'||nsp.nspname||'"."'||p.proname||'"('||pg_get_function_identity_arguments(p.oid)||') OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from pg_proc p join pg_namespace nsp ON p.pronamespace = nsp.oid where nsp.nspname = v_schema
        union all
        select 'ALTER SCHEMA "' || v_schema || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner 
        union all
        select 'ALTER DATABASE "' || current_database() || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner 
    LOOP
        EXECUTE r.a;
    END LOOP;
END$$;

---

I recently had to change the ownership of all objects in a database. Although tables, views, triggers and sequences were somewhat easily changed the above approach failed for functions as the signature is part of the function name. Granted, I have a MySQL background and am not that familiar with Postgres.

However, pg_dump allows you to dump just the schema and this contains the ALTER xxx OWNER TO yyy; statements you need. Here is my bit of shell magic on the topic

pg_dump -s YOUR_DB | grep -i 'owner to' | sed -e 's/OWNER TO .*;/OWNER TO NEW_OWNER;/i' | psqL YOUR_DB

---

very simple, try it...

 select 'ALTER TABLE ' || table_name || ' OWNER TO myuser;' from information_schema.tables where table_schema = 'public';

---

I had to change the ownership of tables, views and sequences and found the great solution posted by @rjk is working fine - despite one detail: If the object names are of mixed case (e.g. "TableName"), this will fail with an "not found"-error. To circumvent this, wrap the object names with ' " ' like this:

Tables

SELECT 'ALTER TABLE \"'|| schemaname || '.' || tablename ||'\" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY schemaname, tablename;

Sequences

SELECT 'ALTER SEQUENCE \"'|| sequence_schema || '.' || sequence_name ||'\" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM information_schema.sequences WHERE NOT sequence_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY sequence_schema, sequence_name;

Views

SELECT 'ALTER VIEW \"'|| table_schema || '.' || table_name ||'\" OWNER TO my_new_owner;'
FROM information_schema.views WHERE NOT table_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY table_schema, table_name;

---

You can try the following in PostgreSQL 9

DO $$DECLARE r record;
BEGIN
    FOR r IN SELECT tablename FROM pg_tables WHERE schemaname = 'public'
    LOOP
        EXECUTE 'alter table '|| r.tablename ||' owner to newowner;';
    END LOOP;
END$$;

---

If current owner is not postgres you can use this:

REASSIGN OWNED BY old_role [, ...] TO new_role

But if the current owner is postgres you definitely get error so you have to use @dvanrensburg answer but if you want to execute commands in same sql use these command based on need:

Database

ALTER DATABASE target_database OWNER TO new_onwer;

Tables

DO
LANGUAGE plpgsql
$$
DECLARE
  stmt text;
BEGIN
  FOR stmt IN
    WITH temp as (
    SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| schemaname || '."' || tablename ||'" OWNER TO newuser' as command
    FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
    ORDER BY schemaname, tablename )
    SELECT command from temp
  LOOP
    EXECUTE stmt;
  END LOOP;
END;
$$;

Sequences

DO
LANGUAGE plpgsql
$$
DECLARE
  stmt text;
BEGIN
  FOR stmt IN
    WITH temp as (
    SELECT 'ALTER SEQUENCE '|| sequence_schema || '."' || sequence_name ||'" OWNER TO newuser;' as command
    FROM information_schema.sequences WHERE NOT sequence_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
    ORDER BY sequence_schema, sequence_name)
    select command from temp
  LOOP
    EXECUTE stmt;
  END LOOP;
END;
$$;

Views

DO
LANGUAGE plpgsql
$$
DECLARE
  stmt text;
BEGIN
  FOR stmt IN
    WITH temp as (
    SELECT 'ALTER VIEW '|| table_schema || '."' || table_name ||'" OWNER TO newuser;' as command
    FROM information_schema.views WHERE NOT table_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
    ORDER BY table_schema, table_name)
    select command from temp
  LOOP
    EXECUTE stmt;
  END LOOP;
END;
$$;

Schemas

DO
LANGUAGE plpgsql
$$
DECLARE
  stmt text;
BEGIN
  FOR stmt IN
    WITH schema_names as(
    SELECT distinct(schemaname) FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
    ORDER BY schemaname)
    SELECT 'ALTER SCHEMA '|| schemaname ||' OWNER TO newuser;' as command
    FROM schema_names
  LOOP
    EXECUTE stmt;
  END LOOP;
END;
$$;

Also note the functions and other components of the database that may need to change memberships

Functions and trigger functions

    DO
    LANGUAGE plpgsql
    $$
    DECLARE
      stmt text;
    BEGIN
      FOR stmt IN
        WITH temp as(
        SELECT 'alter function '||nsp.nspname||'.'||p.proname||'('||pg_get_function_identity_arguments(p.oid)||') owner to newuser;' as command
        FROM pg_proc p
        JOIN pg_namespace nsp ON p.pronamespace = nsp.oid
        WHERE NOT  nsp.nspname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema'))
        SELECT command FROM temp
      LOOP
        EXECUTE stmt;
      END LOOP;
    END;
    $$;

---

There is no such command in PostgreSQL. But you can work around it using method I described some time ago for GRANTs.

---

Based on the answer by elysch, here is a solution for multiple schemas:

DO $$
DECLARE 
  r record;
  i int;
  v_schema text[] := '{public,schema1,schema2,schema3}';
  v_new_owner varchar := 'my_new_owner';
BEGIN
    FOR r IN 
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.tables where table_schema = ANY (v_schema)
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || sequence_schema || '"."' || sequence_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.sequences where sequence_schema = ANY (v_schema)
        union all
        select 'ALTER TABLE "' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from information_schema.views where table_schema = ANY (v_schema)
        union all
        select 'ALTER FUNCTION "'||nsp.nspname||'"."'||p.proname||'"('||pg_get_function_identity_arguments(p.oid)||') OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';' as a from pg_proc p join pg_namespace nsp ON p.pronamespace = nsp.oid where nsp.nspname = ANY (v_schema)
        union all
        select 'ALTER DATABASE "' || current_database() || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner 
    LOOP
        EXECUTE r.a;
    END LOOP;
    FOR i IN array_lower(v_schema,1) .. array_upper(v_schema,1)
    LOOP
        EXECUTE 'ALTER SCHEMA "' || v_schema[i] || '" OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner ;
    END LOOP;
END
$$;

---

The answer by @Alex Soto is the right one and the gist uploaded by @Yoav Aner also works provided there are no special characters in the table/view names (which are legal in postgres).

You need to escape them to work and I have uploaded a gist for that: https://gist.github.com/2911117

---

pg_dump as insert statements 
pg_dump -d -O database filename
-d ( data as inserts ) -O ( capital O is no owner )

Then pipe the backup file back in to PostgreSQL using:

psql -d database -U username -h hostname < filename

As there is no owner included then all of the created table, schema, etc, are created under the login user you specify.

I have read this could be a good approach for migrating between PostgreSQL versions as well.

---

I’ve created a convenient script for that; pg_change_db_owner.sh. This script change ownership for all tables, views, sequences and functions in a database schema and also owner of the schema itself.

Please note that if you wanna just change the ownership of all objects, in a particular database, owned by a particular database role, then you can simply use command REASSIGN OWNED instead.

---

Starting in PostgreSQL 9.0, you have the ability to GRANT [priv name] ON ALL [object type] IN SCHEMA where [priv name] is the typical SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, etc and [object type] can be one of:

TABLES

SEQUENCES

FUNCTIONS

PostgreSQL's docs on GRANT and REVOKE go in to more detail regarding this. In some situations it's still required to use tricks involving the system catalogs (pg_catalog.pg_*) but it's not nearly as common. I frequently do the following:

BEGIN a transaction to modify the privs Change ownership of DATABASES to a "DBA role" Change ownership of SCHEMAS to the "DBA role" REVOKE ALL privs on all TABLES, SEQUENCES and FUNCTIONS from all roles GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE on relevant/appropriate tables to the appropriate roles COMMIT the DCL transaction.

---

The accepted solution does not take care of function ownership following solution takes care of everything (while reviewing I noticed that it is similar to @magiconair above)

echo "Database: ${DB_NAME}"
echo "Schema: ${SCHEMA}"
echo "User: ${NEW_OWNER}"

pg_dump -s -c -U postgres ${DB_NAME} | egrep "${SCHEMA}\..*OWNER TO"| sed -e "s/OWNER TO.*;$/OWNER TO ${NEW_OWNER};/" | psql -U postgres -d ${DB_NAME}
# do following as last step to allow recovery
psql -U postgres -d postgres -c "ALTER DATABASE ${DB_NAME} OWNER TO ${NEW_OWNER};"

---

The following simpler shell script worked for me.

#!/bin/bash
for i in  `psql -U $1  -qt -c  "select tablename from pg_tables where schemaname='$2'"`
do
psql -U $1 -c  "alter table $2.$i set schema $3"
done

Where input $1 - username (database) $2 = existing schema $3 = to new schema.

---

Same as @AlexSoto's approach for functions:

IFS=$'\n'  
for fnc in `psql -qAt -c "SELECT  '\"' || p.proname||'\"' || '(' || pg_catalog.pg_get_function_identity_arguments(p.oid) || ')' FROM pg_catalog.pg_namespace n JOIN pg_catalog.pg_proc p ON p.pronamespace = n.oid WHERE n.nspname = 'public';" YOUR_DB` ; do  psql -c "alter function $fnc owner to NEW_OWNER" YOUR_DB; done

---

For tables you must loop that:

for tbl in `psql -qAt -c "select tablename from pg_tables where schemaname = 'public';" YOUR_DB` ; do  psql -U postgres -c "alter table \"$tbl\" owner to NEW_USER" YOUR_DB ; done

---

Docker: Modify Owner of all Tables + Sequences

export user="your_new_owner"
export dbname="your_db_name"

cat <<EOF | docker run -i --rm --link postgres:postgres postgres sh -c "psql -h \$POSTGRES_PORT_5432_TCP_ADDR -p \$POSTGRES_PORT_5432_TCP_PORT -U postgres -d $dbname" | grep ALTER | docker run -i --rm --link postgres:postgres postgres sh -c "psql -h \$POSTGRES_PORT_5432_TCP_ADDR -p \$POSTGRES_PORT_5432_TCP_PORT -U postgres -d $dbname"
SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '||schemaname||'.'||tablename||' OWNER TO $user;' FROM pg_tables WHERE schemaname = 'public';
SELECT 'ALTER SEQUENCE '||relname||' OWNER TO $user;' FROM pg_class WHERE relkind = 'S';
EOF

---

Reassign owned didn't work for me as I was wanted to change tables owned by postgres.

I ended up using Alex's method, however I wanted to do this from within psql. The following was sufficient for me.

DO $$
DECLARE
    rec record;
BEGIN
    FOR rec in 
        SELECT *
        FROM pg_tables
        where schemaname = 'public'
LOOP
    EXECUTE 'alter table ' || quote_ident(rec.tablename) || ' owner to new_owner';
    END LOOP;
END
$$;

---

This is super easy with ansible. You may also skip obj_type to modify ownership of any object types.

- name: Reassigner owner of all objects
  postgresql_owner:
    login_user: "{{ postgres_admin_username }}"
    login_unix_socket: "{{postgres_socket}}"
    db: "db-name"
    new_owner: "new-owner"
    reassign_owned_by: "old-owner"
    obj_type: "table"

Here is the documentation with some further information: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/postgresql_owner_module.html

Hope that helps.

---

From the others discussions, that don't agree for my own problem. As said, REASSIGN OWNED don't work if owner is postgres. So, I wrote this script, inspired by discussions before :

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.alt_own_onall (v_new_owner text)
    RETURNS void
    LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $alt_own_onall$
-- ALTer OWNer ON ALL objects
DECLARE
    r           RECORD;
    v_sqlcmd    TEXT; -- commande SQL
    b_modif     BOOLEAN DEFAULT false;    -- si au moins une modif
BEGIN
    v_new_owner := quote_ident (v_new_owner);
    IF v_new_owner NOT IN
        (SELECT role_name FROM information_schema.enabled_roles WHERE role_name <>'postgres')
        THEN
            RAISE WARNING '[%] est inconnu', v_new_owner;
            RETURN;
    END IF
    ; -- tables
    RAISE INFO 'Le nouveau propriétaire des tables, vues, fonctions, schémas et de la base va être [%]', v_new_owner
    ;
    FOR r IN
        SELECT quote_ident(schemaname) || '.' || quote_ident(tablename) sch_tbl
        FROM pg_catalog.pg_tables
        WHERE schemaname !~'^(pg_|information)' AND tableowner <> v_new_owner
    LOOP
        v_sqlcmd := 'ALTER TABLE ' || r.sch_tbl || ' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';';
        RAISE INFO 'Exécution de [%]', v_sqlcmd;
        EXECUTE v_sqlcmd;
        b_modif := true;
    END LOOP
    ; -- views
    FOR r IN
        SELECT quote_ident(schemaname) || '.' || quote_ident(viewname) v_sch_nam
        FROM pg_catalog.pg_views
        WHERE schemaname !~'^(pg_|information)' AND viewowner <> v_new_owner
    LOOP
        v_sqlcmd := 'ALTER VIEW '|| r.v_sch_nam ||' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';';
        RAISE INFO 'Exécution de [%]', v_sqlcmd;
        EXECUTE v_sqlcmd;
        b_modif := true;
    END LOOP
    ; -- séquences
/*
    ERROR:  cannot change owner of sequence "*_seq"
    DETAIL:  Sequence "*_seq" is linked to table "*".

    FOR r IN
        SELECT quote_ident(sequence_schema) || '.' || quote_ident(sequence_name) s_sch_nam
        FROM information_schema.sequences
        WHERE sequence_schema !~'^(pg_|information)'
    LOOP
        EXECUTE 'ALTER SEQUENCE ' || r.s_sch_nam || ' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';'
        ;
    END LOOP
    ; -- fonctions */
    FOR r IN
        SELECT
            quote_ident (n.nspname) || '.' || quote_ident (p.proname) || '(' ||
            pg_get_function_identity_arguments (p.oid) || ')' AS nsp_pro_arg
        FROM pg_proc AS p
            JOIN pg_namespace   AS n ON p.pronamespace    = n.oid
            JOIN pg_authid      AS a ON p.proowner        = a.oid
        WHERE n.nspname !~'^(pg_|information)' AND quote_ident(a.rolname) <> v_new_owner
    LOOP
        v_sqlcmd := 'ALTER FUNCTION ' || r.nsp_pro_arg || ' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';';
        RAISE INFO 'Exécution de [%]', v_sqlcmd;
        EXECUTE v_sqlcmd;
        b_modif := true;
    END LOOP
    ; -- schémas
    FOR r IN
        SELECT quote_ident(schema_name) s_nam
        FROM information_schema.schemata
        WHERE schema_name !~'^(pg_|information)' AND quote_ident(schema_owner) <> v_new_owner
    LOOP
        v_sqlcmd := 'ALTER SCHEMA ' || r.s_nam || ' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';';
        RAISE INFO 'Exécution de [%]', v_sqlcmd;
        EXECUTE v_sqlcmd;
        b_modif := true;
    END LOOP
    ; -- base
    FOR r IN
        SELECT d.datname, a.rolname
        FROM pg_database d JOIN pg_authid a ON d.datdba=a.oid
        WHERE d.datname=current_database() AND a.rolname <> v_new_owner
    LOOP
        v_sqlcmd := 'ALTER DATABASE ' || quote_ident(current_database()) || ' OWNER TO ' || v_new_owner || ';';
        RAISE INFO 'Exécution de [%]', v_sqlcmd;
        EXECUTE v_sqlcmd;
        b_modif := true;
    END LOOP
    ;
    IF NOT b_modif THEN RAISE INFO 'Aucune modification n''a été effectuée.'; END IF;
END
;$alt_own_onall$;

to use it under psql : SELECT alt_own_onall ('new_role_name'); You have to translate messages from french to your own language. Works on pg 9.5

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Althought the following does not change the owner, but changes the role, it was what I needed to do, and when searching google I ended up on this queston, so for completeness sake I will enter this here:

For me none of the above solutions worked, I kept getting: must be owner of relation xxx. the final solution was:

GRANT olduser TO newuser;

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