Difference: TWikiAccessControl (20 vs. 21)

Restricting Web Access

Create Hidden Webs

You can prevent selected users and groups from viewing certain TWiki webs by setting one or both of these variables in each web's WebPreferences topic:

• If keeping a hidden web out of general use is a consideration, you should also prevent the "all webs" search option from accessing each hidden web, by enabling the NOSEARCHALL variable in WebPreferences:
  • Set NOSEARCHALL = on
  • It is not recommended to restrict view access to individual topics since all content is searchable within a web.
• This method only works if the view script is authenticated, which means that all users have to login, even for read-only access. (An open guest account, like TWikiGuest, can get around this, allowing anyone to login with, for example, view-only access for public webs.) TWikiInstallationGuide has more on Basic Authentication, using the .htaccess file.
• Hiding webs is not very secure, as there is a way to circumvent the read access restriction. It can be useful in certain situations - for example, to simplify site organization and clutter, by hiding low traffic webs - but is not recommended for securing sensitive content.

Create Authenticated Access By Web

1. Set aside the view script (rename) and create a view subdirectory in its place.
2. In the view subdirectory, create a separate copy of a modified viewing script for each web, and create .htaccess settings for the restricted webs.
   • You can use symbolic links to a single copy of the viewing script to make any script updates that much easier.

Example of viewing script redirect

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#

# Adjust SCRIPT and PATH_INFO variables to account for the changed directory my $web = $ENV{SCRIPT_NAME}; $web =~ s#^.*/view(/[^/]*).*$#$1#; # isolate the path element after "view" $ENV{PATH_TRANSLATED} =~ s#(/[^/]*)$#$web$1#; $ENV{PATH_INFO} =~ s#(/[^/]*)$#$web$1#; $ENV{SCRIPT_NAME} =~ s#/view$web#/view#; $ENV{SCRIPT_FILENAME} =~ s#/view$web#/view#;

# open (LOG, '>>/tmp/redirect.log'); # print LOG join ("\n", scalar localtime (time ()), %ENV); # close LOG; exec ('/usr/bin/perl', '-wT', 'view.orig') or

print <<EOF; Content-type: text/plain

Error executing /cgi-bin/view.orig: $? Click the BACK button in your browser and contact webmaster\@bcs-oops.org.

EOF

• (Mod by ImmoHuneke - 16 Mar 2002)

1. Enable the $doRememberRemoteUser flag in lib/TWiki.cfg as described in TWikiUserAuthentication. TWiki will now remember the IP address of an authenticated user. 1. Copy the view script to viewauth (or better, create a symbolic link) 1. Add viewauth to the list of authenticated scripts in the .htaccess file.