Web Permissions Plugin

Introduction

This plugin provides a centralized interface to TWiki permissions.

Web permissions are presented as a matrix that has columns of webs and rows of users. For each web, you can control which users can view or change that web. All user webs, every registered user (except admin users), and every group (except admin groups) are shown in the matrix.

To interactively edit topic permissions, it adds an "Edit topic ACLs" option to the "More Actions" page.

Web Permissions

This interface allows you to control

Viewing	Editing
VIEW =   CHANGE =   Albums Singles Reviews Statistics AnnieLennox            BillyBragg       ColinTowns            DavidSoul      EaglesGroup        Edit	VIEW =   CHANGE =   Albums Singles Reviews Statistics AnnieLennox             BillyBragg             ColinTowns             DavidSoul             EaglesGroup             Save Cancel

This control model is very useful in cases such as a web per project environment. In this case you will probably want to give team members change access to the specific projects they are working on. The plugin gives you a simple, one page interface, for handling these permissions.

The plugin tries very hard to keep the permissions specification you started with, though it does move them to METADATA.

Topic Permissions

All Users and Groups TWikiContributorTWikiGuest	Remove Add	Editors TWikiAdminGroup AnnieLennox
	Remove Add	Viewers NobodyGroup TWikiRegistrationAgentUnknownUser

Syntax Rules

The web permissions matrix can be viewed (and edited) by entering %WEBPERMISSIONS% anywhere in a topic. You have to have admin rights to view/edit the matrix.

The topic permissions UI can be viewed (and edited) by entering %TOPICPERMISSIONS% anywhere in a topic (or accesing it via the 'More topic actions' page). You have to have write permissions to that topic to view/edit the UI.

WEBPERMISSIONS

The WEBPERMISSIONS TWiki variable accepts the following parameters:

• repeatheads - if set to a number, headings will be repeated every this number of rows. This is very useful when you have a lot of users and groups.
• webs - a comma-separated list of webs to show. Default is to show all webs.
• users - a comma-separated list of users (and groups) to show. Default is to show all users and groups.

Both webs and users lists can use wildcards. A star (*) in a name will match any number of characters - so Brian* will match all users and groups whose names start with Brian. *Group will match all users or groups whose name ends in Group. If you put a minus sign (-) before a name in either list, then the next expression will be treated as a filter e.g. -Secret will exclude the name Secret from the list, and *Group will exclude all names ending in Group from the list.

Use the following form to select the subset of webs and users you want to display. If you have admin rights, and the plugin is installed, you will see the matrix below the form:

TOPICPERMISSIONS

The topic permissions tool can be viewed (and edited) by entering %TOPICPERMISSIONS% anywhere in a topic.

To add an "Edit ACLS" option to the "More topic actions" screen add webpermissions to the front of the SKIN setting (e.g. Set SKIN=webpermissions,pattern)

Plugin Settings

By default, the plugin only supports VIEW and CHANGE permissions on webs. You can change the set of access modes handled by the plugin by defining a configuration variable (in LocalSite.cfg) to be a comma-separated list of access modes. For example,

$TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{WebPermissionsPlugin}{modes} = 'VIEW,CHANGE,RENAME';

Plugin Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server where TWiki is running.

Like many other TWiki extensions, this module is shipped with a fully automatic installer script written using the BuildContrib.

• If you have TWiki 4.2 or later, you can install from the configure interface (Go to Plugins->Find More Extensions)
  • See the installation supplement on TWiki.org for more information.
• If you have any problems, then you can still install manually from the command-line:
  1. Download one of the .zip or .tgz archives
  2. Unpack the archive in the root directory of your TWiki installation.
  3. Run the installer script ( perl <module>_installer )
  4. Run configure and enable the module, if it is a plugin.
  5. Repeat for any missing dependencies.
• If you are still having problems, then instead of running the installer script:
  1. Make sure that the file permissions allow the webserver user to access all files.
  2. Check in any installed files that have existing ,v files in your existing install (take care not to lock the files when you check in)
  3. Manually edit LocalSite.cfg to set any configuration variables.

To access the Topic Permission editor, add webpermissions to the SKIN setting in TWikiPreferences, such as Set SKIN=webpermissions,pattern

Plugin Info

Many thanks to the following sponsors for supporting this work:

• This plugin was developed on behalf of Evolved Media
• Further work supported by Spanlink Communications

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.CrawfordCurrie & TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit, http://wikiring.com
Copyright:	© 2006, Evolved Media, Spanlink Communications and WikiRing; © 2006-2011 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	20623 (2011-03-06)
Change History:
2011-03-06	TWikibug:Item6655: XHTML fixes; Placing checkboxes before checkbox label to be compliant with web standards; better images for VIEW.gif and CHANGE.gif -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
2011-03-06	TWikibug:Item6655: Fix for TWiki-5.0 -- TWiki:Main.SzymonSobczyk
2010-05-26	TWikibug:Item6433: Doc improvements -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
4 Dec 2007	TWikibug:Item4901 fixed templates TWikibug:Item5072 added users parameter to select a subset of users/groups in the web permissions interface
8 Sep 2007	Updated for TWiki-4.2.0
July 2006	add Topic ACLs user interface via More topic actions - SvenDowideit@WikiRingPLEASENOSPAM.com
10216	TWikibug:Item2291 - Added repeatheads and webs parameters
9048	TWikibug:Item1766 - corrected problems with passing incorrect parameters to setACLs and not interpreting values from the form correctly.
8877	TWikibug:Item1701 - first release
Dependencies:	Name Version Description TWiki::Plugins >=1.10 TWiki-4
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/WebPermissionsPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/WebPermissionsPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/WebPermissionsPluginAppraisal

Related Topics: TWikiPlugins, DeveloperDocumentationCategory, AdminDocumentationCategory, TWikiPreferences