Joomla 1.6/1.7 Access Control Lists (ACL)

Joomla 1.7 Access Control Lists (ACL) Jen Kramer 4Web, Inc. Joomla Day Chicago August 2011

Agenda
Understanding ACL terms
Understanding ACL hierarchy
ACL example configurations

What is ACL?
Most people think of “who sees what”
It’s also who creates, edits, and configures what
Joomla separates viewing from all other permissions in a separate system (access levels)

Just because you can…
ACL is NOT for newbies
ACL gets very complicated very quickly
There is nothing wrong with using the default settings, which approximate Joomla 1.5 ACL

If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. The Zen of Python

Joomla 1.5 ACL: Review
7 user groups , plus public. Groups cannot be expanded
Any user in any group can do anything the group can do
Groups are hierarchical: inherit permissions
3 access levels: Public, Registered, Special

Joomla 1.7 ACL
7 user groups by default, add as many more as you wish
Any user in any group can do anything the group can do
Groups are not hierarchical: they inherit permissions, but they can be set with whatever permissions you want
3 access levels by default, can add more. Permissions NOT inherited

Users (Users – User Manager – Add New User)

Core Permissions (Site – Global Configuration – Permissions)

User Groups (Users – Groups – Add New Group)
User groups inherit core permissions from parents
If you want to keep it (more) simple, keep parent as public and add required permissions
“ Flat is better than nested.” ( Zen of Python )

Access Levels (Users – Access Levels – Add New Access Level)
Access levels do NOT inherit permissions from other groups
Possible for SU to not see certain content on front end

Now you know the terms…
On to the planning!

Planning for ACL
Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Example…
The general public can visit that site and see most content. However, there is content behind the scenes for students and teachers.
A teacher can see content specifically for teachers, all student content, and the public content.
Students can only see student content (not teacher content) and the public content.

Planning for ACL
Is your problem a reading problem? Or does it have to do with creating/editing/deleting content? Or both?
If it’s a reading problem, you need to think about access levels.
If it’s an editing problem, you might not need to think about access levels at all.

Planning for ACL
Think about maintenance.
It’s easier to allow all content within a category be editable or readable by a group, rather than setting individual articles.

Planning for ACL
Think about inheritance.
Do users belong to more than one user group? If so, how does that affect their permission to do things?
User group permissions ARE inherited
Access levels are NOT inherited

Joomla 1.7 ACL demo

Questions?
Jen Kramer
4Web, Inc.
www.4webinc.com
www.joomla4web.com
[email_address]
Twitter: jen4web

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Joomla 1.6/1.7 Access Control Lists (ACL)

by Jen Kramer on Aug 08, 2011

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Joomla 1.6/1.7 Access Control Lists (ACL) — Presentation Transcript