Aide:Managing user rights

Managing user rights

These pages are derived from the public domain help pages at MediaWiki. See Help:Contents for an overview of all Help pages.

User rights are specific access and ability permissions that can be assigned to customizable groups, which can then be assigned to (or removed from) users through the Special:Userrights interface. For example, the default bureaucrat group enables the use of the User rights interface.

This feature was introduced in MediaWiki 1.5; see setting user rights in MediaWiki on the Meta-wiki for earlier methods.

Managing groups

A default MediaWiki installation assigns certain rights to default groups (see below). You can change the default rights by declaring the $wgGroupPermissions array in LocalSettings.php with the syntax "$wgGroupPermissions[' group '][' right '] = boolean;". To change permissions for all groups, use "*" as the group. For example, to disable editing for all users, add "$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;".

In addition to the default groups, you can arbitrarily create new groups using the same array. For example:

 $wgGroupPermissions['ninja']['bot']    = true;
 $wgGroupPermissions['ninja']['block']  = true;
 $wgGroupPermissions['ninja']['delete'] = true;

Rights and groups

The following user rights are available:

Right	Description
Reading
read	allows viewing pages not defined in $wgWhitelistRead.
Editing
edit	allows editing unprotected pages.
createpage	allows the creation of new pages (requires the edit right).
createtalk	allows the creation of new talk pages (requires the edit right).
move	allows renaming page titles.
createaccount	allows the creation of new user accounts.
upload	allows the creation of new images and files.
reupload	allows overwriting existing images and files.
reupload-shared	allows replacing images and files from a shared repository (if one is set up) with local files.
upload_by_url	allows uploading by entering the URL of an external image.
Management
delete	allows the deletion of edits and pages.
undelete	allows viewing and restoring deleted edits and pages.
deletedhistory	allows viewing deleted revisions, but not restoring.
protect	allows locking a page to prevent edits, and editing locked pages.
block	allows the blocking of IP addresses, CIDR ranges, and registered users. Block options include preventing editing and registering new accounts, and autoblocking other users on the same IP address.
blockemail	allows preventing use of the Special:Emailuser interface when blocking.
userrights	allows the use of the user rights interface, which allows the assignment or removal of groups to any user.
rollback	allows one-click reversion of edits.
patrol	allows marking edits as legitimate ($wgUseRCPatrol must be true).
editinterface	allows editing the MediaWiki namespace, which contains interface messages.
Administration
siteadmin	allows locking and unlocking the database (which blocks all interactions with the web site except viewing).
import	allows user to import pages from another wiki.
importupload	allows user to import pages from XML files.
trackback	allows removal of trackbacks (if $wgUseTrackbacks is true).
unwatchedpages	allows access to Special:Unwatchedpages, which lists pages that no user has watchlisted.
Technical
bot	hides edits from recent changes lists and watchlists by default (can optionally be viewed).
purge	allows purging a page without a confirmation step (URL parameter "&action=purge").
minoredit	allows marking an edit as 'minor'.
nominornewtalk	blocks new message notification when making minor edits to user talk pages (requires minor edit right).
ipblock-exempt	makes user immune to blocks applied to his IP address.
proxyunbannable	makes user immune to the open proxy blocker, which is disabled by default ($wgBlockOpenProxies).
autopatrol	automatically marks all edits by the user as patrolled ($wgUseRCPatrol must be true).

The following groups are available:

Group	Description
*	all users (including anonymous).
user	registered accounts.
autoconfirmed	registered accounts at least as old as $wgAutoConfirmAge and having at least as many edits as $wgAutoConfirmCount.
emailconfirmed	registered accounts with confirmed email addresses.
bot	accounts with the bot right (intended for automated scripts).
sysop	users who by default can delete and restore pages, block and unblock users, et cetera.
bureaucrat	users who by default can change other users' rights.

Default rights

The default rights are defined in DefaultSettings.php. MediaWiki 1.11alpha defines the following:

/**
 * Permission keys given to users in each group.
 * All users are implicitly in the '*' group including anonymous visitors;
 * logged-in users are all implicitly in the 'user' group. These will be
 * combined with the permissions of all groups that a given user is listed
 * in in the user_groups table.
 *
 * Functionality to make pages inaccessible has not been extensively tested
 * for security. Use at your own risk!
 *
 * This replaces wgWhitelistAccount and wgWhitelistEdit
 */
$wgGroupPermissions = array();  

// Implicit group for all visitors
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createaccount']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['read']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['edit']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createpage']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createtalk']      = true;

// Implicit group for all logged-in accounts
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['move']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['read']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['edit']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createpage']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createtalk']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['upload']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload']        = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload-shared'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['minoredit']       = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['purge']           = true; // can use ?action=purge without clicking "ok" 

// Implicit group for accounts that pass $wgAutoConfirmAge
$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['autoconfirmed'] = true;

// Implicit group for accounts with confirmed email addresses
// This has little use when email address confirmation is off
$wgGroupPermissions['emailconfirmed']['emailconfirmed'] = true;

// Users with bot privilege can have their edits hidden
// from various log pages by default
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['bot']             = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['autoconfirmed']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['nominornewtalk']  = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['autopatrol']      = true;

// Most extra permission abilities go to this group
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['block']           = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['createaccount']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['delete']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deletedhistory']  = true; // can view deleted history entries, but not see or restore the text
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['editinterface']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['import']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['importupload']    = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['move']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['patrol']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autopatrol']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['protect']         = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['proxyunbannable'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['rollback']        = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['trackback']       = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload']        = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload-shared'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['unwatchedpages']  = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autoconfirmed']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload_by_url']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['ipblock-exempt']  = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['blockemail']      = true; 

// Permission to change users' group assignments
$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']['userrights'] = true; 

// Experimental permissions, not ready for production use
//$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deleterevision'] = true;
//$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']['hiderevision'] = true; 

/**
 * The developer group is deprecated, but can be activated if need be
 * to use the 'lockdb' and 'unlockdb' special pages. Those require
 * that a lock file be defined and creatable/removable by the web
 * server.
 */
# $wgGroupPermissions['developer']['siteadmin'] = true;

Examples

Anonymous users cannot view pages

This example will disable viewing of all pages not listed in $wgWhitelistRead, then re-enable for registered users only.

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read']    = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['read'] = true;

See also

• Manual:$wgNamespaceProtection
• Manual:Preventing access (examples)
• Extension:Lockdown