DROP ROLE

Enterprise command reference.

Command Snapshot

Field	Value
Category	Security and Access Control
Mutates Data	Yes/Depends
Scope	Cluster / Object
Privilege Model	Requires administrative privilege for role, user, and privilege management.

Purpose

Defines, changes, or removes schema and metadata objects.

Syntax

DROP ROLE [ IF EXISTS ] name;

Operational Notes

Use schema-qualified identifiers in automation and automation pipelines.
Validate behavior in staging for cluster-impacting or governance-impacting changes.
Confirm runtime effects through system tables and metrics before and after execution.

When to Use

Use to implement least-privilege access and role governance.
Use when onboarding users/roles or changing permission boundaries.

When Not to Use

Avoid broad wildcard grants/denials without impact review and audit traceability.

Common Errors and Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely Cause	Action
Permission denied / unauthorized	Missing privilege on object or cluster scope	Re-run with required grants or elevated admin role.
Analysis/parse error	Syntax variant or object shape mismatch	Compare with canonical syntax and object definition.
Runtime failure under load	Resource limits, breaker pressure, or node state transitions	Check `sys.jobs`, `sys.operations`, `sys.checks`, and retry after mitigation.

Cross-References

Detailed Reference

The DROP ROLE statement in MonkDB is used to remove an existing database user or role from the cluster.

SQL Statement

DROP ROLE [ IF EXISTS ] name;

Description

The DROP ROLE statement deletes a specified role or user from the MonkDB cluster. It is part of MonkDB's user and role management system, which allows administrators to manage access and permissions effectively

Key Features

IF EXISTS: Prevents errors if the specified role does not exist. Instead, it issues a notice.
name: Represents the unique identifier of the role or user to be removed. This follows SQL identifier principles

Important Considerations

Role Dependencies: A role cannot be dropped if it has been granted to other roles or users. You must revoke these grants first.
Ownership of Objects: If the role owns database objects (e.g., schemas), those objects must either be reassigned to another role or dropped before removing the role.
Revoking Permissions: Any privileges granted to the role must be revoked prior to using DROP ROLE.
Superuser Privileges: To drop a superuser role, you must have superuser privileges. For non-superuser roles, the CREATE ROLE privilege is required

Examples

If you want to drop a user/role in MonkDB:

DROP USER IF EXISTS role_name;

If you granted schema/table-level privileges earlier and want to revoke them.

REVOKE DQL, DML ON SCHEMA monkdb.{table_name} FROM role_name;

Then drop the user.