Difference: TWikiAccessControl (14 vs. 15)

An Important Control Consideration

Open, freeform editing is the essence of the WikiCulture - it's what makes TWiki different and often more effective than other collaboration tools. So, it is strongly recommended that decisions to restrict read or write access to a web or a topic are made with care. Experience shows that unrestricted write access works very well because:

• Peer editing - the ability to rearrange anything on a page - keeps topics focussed.

• • Users are encouraged to edit and refactor (condense a long topic), since there's a safety net.

As a collaboration guideline:

• Create broad groups (more and varied input), and...
• Avoid creating view-only users (if you can read it, you can contribute to it).

• Users can be authenticated using Basic Authentication or SSL. Authentication is required in order to track user identities.

1. Create a new topic with A name that ends in Group, SomeGroup
2. Define two variables:

• • GROUP is a comma-separated list of users and of other groups:
        * Set GROUP = Main.SomeUser, Main.OtherUser, Main.SomeOtherGroup

• • ALLOWTOPICCHANGE defines who is allowed to change the group topic; it is a comma delimited list of users and groups. You typically want to restrict that to the members of the group itself, so it should contain the name of the topic,
        * Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = Main.TWikiAdminGroup
    for the TWikiAdminGroup topic. (This prevents users not in the group from editing the topic and from gaining unauthorized membership to the group.)

Deny Editing by Topic

• Define one or both of these variables in a topic, preferably at the end of the page:

• DENYTOPICCHANGE defines users or groups that are not allowed to make changes to the topic. It is a comma delimited list of users and groups. Example:
      * Set DENYTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeBadBoy, Main.SomeBadGirl, Main.SomeHackerGroup

• ALLOWTOPICCHANGE defines users or groups that are allowed to make changes to the topic. It is a comma delimited list of users and groups. Example:
      * Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = Main.SomeGoodGuy, Main.SomeGoodGirl, Main.TWikiAdminGroup

• DENYTOPICCHANGE is evaluated before ALLOWTOPICCHANGE. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYTOPICCHANGE list, or not in the ALLOWTOPICCHANGE list. Access is granted in case DENYTOPICCHANGE and ALLOWTOPICCHANGE is not defined.

• Define one or both of these variable in the WebPreferences topic:

• Define one or both of these variables in a topic, preferably at the end of the topic:

• DENYTOPICCRENAME defines users or groups that are not allowed to rename the topic. It is a comma delimited list of users and groups. Example:
      * Set DENYTOPICRENAME = Main.SomeBadBoy, Main.SomeBadGirl, Main.SomeHackerGroup

• ALLOWTOPICRENAME defines users or groups that are allowed to rename the topic. It is a comma delimited list of users and groups. Example:
      * Set ALLOWTOPICRENAME = Main.SomeGoodGuy, Main.SomeGoodGirl, Main.TWikiAdminGroup

• DENYTOPICRENAME is evaluated before ALLOWTOPICRENAME. Access is denied if the authenticated person is in the DENYTOPICRENAME list, or not in the ALLOWTOPICRENAME list. Access is granted in case DENYTOPICRENAME and ALLOWTOPICRENAME is not defined.

• Define one or both of these variable in the WebPreferences topic:

• Define one or both of these variable in the WebPreferences topic:

1. 1. Omit the view script from the .htaccess file.
   2. Enable the $doRememberRemoteUser flag in lib/wikicfg.pm as described in User Authentication. TWiki will now remember the IP address of an authenticated user.
   3. Copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link)
   4. Add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file.

• Set the $superAdminGroup variable in lib/TWiki.cfg to the name of a group of users that are always allowed to edit/view topics.