Exasol provides you with various system tables that describe the metadata of the database and the current status of the system. These system tables are located in SYS and EXA_STATISTICS schemas and are integrated automatically into the current namespace. You can access the system tables through the respective schema-qualified name, SYS.<table_name> (for example, SELECT * FROM SYS.DUAL). If an object with the same name does not exist in the current schema, then you can query it without stating the schema name, SYS.
Some system tables are critical to system security. You can access these tables only with SELECT ANY DICTIONARY system privilege (users with the DBA role have this privilege by default). It includes all system tables with the EXA_DBA_ prefix.
Some system tables are accessible to everyone. However, the content of these tables depends on the current user. For example, in EXA_ALL_OBJECTS, only the database objects the current user has access to are displayed.
The following sections describe Exasol's system tables and their access rules:
