Read privileges
AuraDB Business CriticalAuraDB Virtual Dedicated CloudEnterprise Edition

There are three separate read privileges:

  • TRAVERSE - enables the specified entities to be found.

  • READ - enables the specified properties of the found entities to be read.

  • MATCH - combines both TRAVERSE and READ, enabling an entity to be found and its properties read.

For more details about how to read the administration commands syntax, see Reading the administration commands syntax and Components of the graph privilege commands.

The TRAVERSE privilege

Users can be granted the right to find nodes and relationships using the GRANT TRAVERSE privilege.

GRANT [IMMUTABLE] TRAVERSE
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

For more details about the pattern syntax used to express attributes based access control rules, see Property-based access control.

For example, you can enable users with the role regularUsers to find all nodes with the label Post in the database neo4j:

GRANT TRAVERSE ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Post TO regularUsers

The TRAVERSE privilege can also be denied.

DENY [IMMUTABLE] TRAVERSE
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

For example, you can disable users with the role regularUsers from finding all nodes with the label Payments:

DENY TRAVERSE ON HOME GRAPH NODES Payments TO regularUsers

Although you just granted the role regularUsers the right to read all properties on nodes with label Post, you may want to make this more fine-grained using Property-based access control to hide the posts with secret property set to true. For example:

DENY TRAVERSE ON HOME GRAPH FOR (:Post {secret: true}) TO regularUsers

If a label or a relationship type does not exist in the database, the user cannot use the corresponding privilege until it is created. See Privileges for nonexistent labels, relationship types, and property names for more information.

The READ privilege

Users can be granted the right to do property reads on nodes and relationships using the GRANT READ privilege. It is very important to note that users can only read properties on entities that they are enabled to find in the first place.

GRANT [IMMUTABLE] READ "{" { * | property[, ...] } "}"
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

For more details about the pattern syntax used to express attributes based access control rules, see Property-based access control.

For example, you can enable users with the role regularUsers to read all properties on nodes with the label Post in the database neo4j. The * implies that the ability to read all properties also extends to properties that might be added in the future.

GRANT READ { * } ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Post TO regularUsers

To further fine-grained the read access, you can enable users with the role regularUsers to read all properties on nodes with the label Post that have property secret not set to true in the database neo4j. For example:

GRANT READ { * } ON GRAPH neo4j FOR (n:Post) WHERE n.secret <> true TO regularUsers

Granting property READ access does not imply that the entities with that property can be found. For example, if there is also a DENY TRAVERSE present on the same entity as a GRANT READ, the entity will not be found by a Cypher MATCH statement.

The READ privilege can also be denied.

DENY [IMMUTABLE] READ "{" { * | property[, ...] } "}"
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

Although you just granted the role regularUsers the right to read all properties, you may want to hide the secret property. The following example shows how to do that:

DENY READ { secret } ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Post TO regularUsers

If a label, a relationship type, or a property name does not exist in the database, the user cannot use the corresponding privilege until it is created. See Privileges for nonexistent labels, relationship types, and property names for more information.

The MATCH privilege

Users can be granted the right to find and do property reads on nodes and relationships using the GRANT MATCH privilege. This is semantically the same as having both TRAVERSE and READ privileges.

GRANT [IMMUTABLE] MATCH "{" { * | property[, ...] } "}"
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

For more details about the pattern syntax used to express attributes based access control rules, see Property-based access control.

For example if you want to grant the ability to read the properties language and length for nodes with the label Message, as well as the ability to find these nodes to the role regularUsers, you can use the following GRANT MATCH query:

GRANT MATCH { language, length } ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Message TO regularUsers

The following query grants the regularUsers role the ability to find Post and Likes nodes where the secret property is set to false, as well as reading all their properties.

GRANT MATCH { * } ON GRAPH neo4j FOR (n:Post|Likes) WHERE n.secret = false TO regularUsers

Like all other privileges, the MATCH privilege can also be denied.

DENY [IMMUTABLE] MATCH "{" { * | property[, ...] } "}"
  ON { HOME GRAPH | GRAPH[S] { * | name[, ...] } }
    [
      ELEMENT[S] { * | label-or-rel-type[, ...] }
      | NODE[S] { * | label[, ...] }
      | RELATIONSHIP[S] { * | rel-type[, ...] }
      | FOR pattern
    ]
  TO role[, ...]

Please note that the effect of denying a MATCH privilege depends on whether concrete property keys are specified or are *. If you specify concrete property keys, then DENY MATCH will only deny reading those properties. Finding the elements to traverse would still be enabled. If you specify * instead, then both traversal of the element and all property reads will be disabled. The following queries will show examples for this.

Denying to read the property content on nodes with the label Message for the role regularUsers would look like the following query. Although not being able to read this specific property, nodes with that label can still be traversed (and, depending on other grants, other properties on it could still be read).

DENY MATCH { content } ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Message TO regularUsers

The following query exemplifies how it would look if you wanted to deny both reading all properties and traversing nodes labeled with Account in the database neo4j:

DENY MATCH { * } ON GRAPH neo4j NODES Account TO regularUsers

If a label, a relationship type, or a property name does not exist in the database, the user cannot use the corresponding privilege until it is created. See Privileges for nonexistent labels, relationship types, and property names for more information.

Glossary

allocator

A component in the cluster that allocates databases to servers according to the topology constraints specified and an allocation strategy.

asynchronous replication

Asynchronous replication is used by secondary copies to poll for new transactions, which means they cannot be guaranteed to have received the most recent transactions. This enables efficient scale-out of read-performance.

Aura instance

A fully-managed DBMS represented by a single instance ID, that is running in the Neo4j Aura cloud.

auto-commit transaction

An automatically committed transaction that contains a single query.

Bolt protocol

Bolt is a protocol used for interaction between Neo4j instances and drivers.

bookmark

A marker the client can request from the cluster to ensure that it is able to read its own writes so that the application’s state is consistent and only databases that have a copy of the bookmark are permitted to respond.

category (Bloom)

A category is based on a node label and is defined in a Perspective as a way of visually distinguishing nodes with the same label(s).

causal consistency

All servers in a cluster agree on the order in which transactions take place. The position of a server on the causal chain can be guaranteed using a bookmark.

cluster

A Neo4j DBMS that spans multiple servers working together to increase fault tolerance and/or read scalability. Databases on a cluster may be configured to replicate across servers in the cluster thus achieving read scalability or high availability.

client application

Software that interacts with a Neo4j server.

commit

A commit is the successful completion of a transaction, which ensures durability of any changes made. For more details, visit Operations Manual → Transaction management.

composite database

Composite databases are the means to access partitioned graph data with a single Cypher query.

constraint

Constraints are sets of data modeling rules that ensure the data is consistent and reliable.

Cypher®

Neo4j’s graph query language.

data model

A data model defines how information is organized in a database. A good data model will make querying and understanding your data easier. In Neo4j, the data models have a graph structure.

database

A database is a container used by the DBMS to manage and store graph data. The physical structure of data is controlled by the database.

database vs graph

Databases are the physical containers of graph data. Graphs are the logical structure of data in Neo4j.

Database Management System

Database Management System, or DBMS, capable of managing multiple databases. A DBMS may run on a single server, or span several servers configured as a cluster.

database schema

The prescribed property existence and datatypes for nodes and relationships.

deallocate

An act of removing a database from a server or a server from a cluster without loss of data or reduced fault tolerance.

degree (of a node)

The number of relationships of a specific node; loops are counted twice.

disaster recovery

A manual intervention to restore availability of a cluster, or databases within a cluster.

driver

A software library that provides access to Neo4j from a particular programming language.

election

In the event that the Raft leader becomes unresponsive, followers automatically trigger an election and vote for a new leader.

entity

A node or a relationship.

expression (Cypher)

A component of a Cypher query which produces values. It may be used in projections, as a predicate, or when setting properties on graph elements.

fabric

Fabric is the architectural design of a unified system that provides a single access point to local or distributed graph data.

fault tolerance

A guarantee that a cluster can maintain a database’s persistence and availability in the event of one or more servers failing.

follower

A primary copy of a database acting as a follower, receives and acknowledges synchronous writes from the leader.

Generative AI (GenAI)

A type of artificial intelligence (AI) system that generates text, images, or other media in response to prompts.

graph

A logical representation of a set of nodes where some pairs are connected by relationships.

index

Data structure that improves read performance of a database.

knowledge graph

A specific type of graph that has an organizing principle so that a user (or a computer system) can reason about the underlying data. The organizing principle provides an additional layer of structure that adds context to support knowledge discovery.

label

Marks a node as a member of a named and indexed subset. A node may be assigned zero or more labels.

leader

A single primary copy of a database is designated as the leader. It receives all write transactions from clients and replicates writes synchronously to followers and asynchronously to secondary copies of the database.

main database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database(s) containing the user’s data. Can exist in the same Neo4j deployment as the tool asset database.

motif

A description of a specific pattern within a graph.

node

A node represents an entity or discrete object in your graph data model. Nodes can be connected by relationships, hold data in properties, and are classified by labels.

operator

A symbol representing a mathematical or logical operation.

parameter

Named value provided when running a Cypher statement.

path

A sequence of nodes and the relationships connecting them, that does not contain duplicate relationships. Several paths can match a pattern.

pattern

A specific arrangement of nodes and relationships that can be matched in a graph. A pattern follows a motif.

perspective (Bloom)

A Perspective defines a certain business view or domain that can be found in the target Neo4j graph. A single Neo4j graph can be viewed through different Perspectives, each tailored for a different business purpose.

primary

A copy of the database that is able to process write transactions and is eligible to be elected as a leader. It participates in fault tolerant writes as it is part of the majority required to acknowledge and commit write transactions.

primary vs secondary

In a cluster, databases can operate in either primary or secondary mode. Primary databases are able to process write and read transactions, ensuring fault tolerance. Secondary databases are replicated asynchronously from primaries, and their main purpose is to provide read scaling within the cluster.

project (Aura)

An isolated environment in the unified Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Preceded by tenant in the classic Aura console.

property

Properties are key-value pairs that are used for storing data on nodes and relationships.

query (Cypher)

A statement that retrieves or writes information to a database.

Raft group

A group of servers that are participating in hosting a particular database in primary mode.

Raft group member

A server that is participating in a Raft group. A server can be a member of one or more groups.

Raft log

A shared log between all Raft group members that is guaranteed to be consistently updated and viewed by those members. The log contains both database data and operational state of the Raft group.

Raft protocol

The networking mechanism that enables a database to replicate its data across multiple servers to give high availability for accessing the data and high durability to the data stored.

read scaling

Distributing query load by creating additional database copies hosted in secondary mode (read-only).

relationship

A relationship represents a connection between nodes in your graph data model. Relationships connect a source node to a target node, hold data in properties, and are classified by type.

secondary

An asynchronously replicated copy of the database that provides read scaling within the cluster.

seed

A seed is a database dump or a full backup used to create a database on a cluster. This is sometimes called seeding.

server

A physical machine, a virtual machine, or a container running an instance of Neo4j. Servers can be standalone or part of a cluster.

session

A causally linked sequence of transactions.

session consistency

An alternative name for Neo4j’s causal consistency.

standalone

A single server running Neo4j and not part of a cluster.

synchronous replication

Synchronous replication requires the leader primary to replicate a transaction and block the commit until a quorum of the follower primaries acknowledges that the transaction is successfully replicated. Once the transaction is replicated, the commit is allowed to proceed. This ensures data durability and consistency within the cluster.

system database

A database used by Neo4j to store system information.

tenant (Aura)

An isolated environment in the classic Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Replaced by project in the unified Aura console.

tool asset database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database where tools' assets are stored. This can be in the same Neo4j deployment as the main database(s) or in a separate deployment.

topology

A configuration that describes how the copies of a database should be spread across the servers in a cluster, see primary mode and secondary mode.

transaction

A transaction comprises a unit of work performed against a database. It is treated in a coherent and reliable way, independent of other transactions. Transactions comply with the ACID consistency model (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable).