@Rocky Does

BACKUP

handles users and permissions ? If not can you suggest strategies

The short answer is no. The

BACKUP

statement in StarRocks does not handle user accounts, roles, or permissions. It is designed to back up data-related objects such as databases, tables (internal and external metadata), views, and UDFs. According to the official documentation, StarRocks currently does not support backing up and restoring configuration data related to user accounts, privileges, or resource groups via the

BACKUP/RESTORE

command. Suggested Strategies for Backing Up Users and Permissions Since these are not included in the standard backup, you should export them manually or using scripts. Here are the recommended approaches: 1. Manual Export via

SHOW GRANTS

You can generate the required SQL statements for users and roles manually. * For Users:

SHOW USERS;

to list all users, then

SHOW GRANTS FOR <user>;

to see their privileges. * For Roles:

SHOW ROLES;

to list roles, then

SHOW GRANTS FOR ROLE <role_name>;

to see the role's privileges. 2. Automated Scripting (Recommended) You can use a bash script to iterate through all users and roles and save their creation and grant statements to a file. Below is a sample logic (inspired by the StarRocks documentation) to automate this:

bash
#!/bin/bash
# Connection details
HOST="your_fe_host"
PORT="9030"
USER="root"
PASSWORD="your_password"
OUTPUT_FILE="starrocks_privileges_backup.sql"

# Clear previous backup
> $OUTPUT_FILE

# 1. Export Roles
echo "-- Roles Backup" >> $OUTPUT_FILE
roles=$(mysql -h$HOST -P$PORT -u$USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW ROLES;" -sN)
for role in $roles; do
    echo "CREATE ROLE IF NOT EXISTS $role;" >> $OUTPUT_FILE
    mysql -h$HOST -P$PORT -u$USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW GRANTS FOR ROLE $role;" -sN | awk '{print $0 ";"}' >> $OUTPUT_FILE
done

# 2. Export Users and their Grants
echo "-- Users and Grants Backup" >> $OUTPUT_FILE
# Note: Use SHOW ALL AUTHENTICATION or SHOW USERS to get the user list
users=$(mysql -h$HOST -P$PORT -u$USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW USERS;" -sN | awk '{print $1}')
for user in $users; do
    # You would need to handle CREATE USER statements with passwords manually 
    # as SHOW GRANTS only shows the permissions.
    echo "-- Grants for $user" >> $OUTPUT_FILE
    mysql -h$HOST -P$PORT -u$USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW GRANTS FOR $user;" -sN | awk '{print $0 ";"}' >> $OUTPUT_FILE
done

3. Metadata Backup (FE Level) If you are performing a full cluster migration or recovery, user and permission information is stored in the Front End (FE) metadata (specifically in the

bdbje

logs and image files). * If you back up the entire

meta/

directory of your FE nodes, you are effectively backing up all users and permissions. * However, this is typically used for cluster-wide recovery rather than granular migration of specific databases. 4. Third-Party Tools The community sometimes uses tools like

olapdb-tool

to help export structures, though for permissions, the custom script approach using

SHOW GRANTS

remains the most reliable method. Summary * BACKUP: Handles tables, data, views, and UDFs. * Strategy for Users: Use a script to run

SHOW USERS

,

SHOW ROLES

, and

SHOW GRANTS

for each, then save the output as a

.sql

file to be replayed on the target cluster. References • administration/user_privs/authorization/User_privilege.md • sql-reference/sql-statements/account-management/SHOW_AUTHENTICATION.md • sql-reference/sql-statements/account-management/SHOW_GRANTS.md • administration/user_privs/authentication/native_authentication.md