Plugins :: Blog :: Access control plugin

March 09, 2007

Access control plugin

I've added an "Access extension" plugin to the Elgg plugin repository here:

This plugin extends the Elgg access control system.

It adds a "Friends" option to Elgg access control select boxes, and a "Block this person" link to every sidebar.

If the user selects "Friends" in the access control box, that content is only visible to people on their friends list.

If they click on "Block this person" in a user's sidebar, only their public content will be visible to that user (and even then, only when the user is logged out and cannot be identified).

Keywords: access control, plugin

Posted by Kevin Jardine @ Plugins

Comments

Page: 1 2

It looks great!
I will take a look on it. I think that it could be a great baseline for the security options of the private messages plug-in.
Thanks a lot!

Diego Andrés Ramírez Aragón on Friday, 09 March 2007, 19:09 UTC # |
I think that all you would need to do is provide a place to set an access group for a user's private messaging and then check that access whenever someone tried to send that person a message. My plugin works directly with Elgg's access check system, so everything should Just Work after that.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 19:26 UTC # |
wow - that was fast! thanks - gonna put it in shortly and will let you know if anything odd happens...

btw, if you block a person and that person then comments on one of your blog postings, community blog postings, etc, will you still be able to see their comments/content? trying to get my arms around exactly what it blocks...

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:02 UTC # |
A blocked person should not even see any of your content.
Good question about community posts. Please try it out and tell me what happens.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:13 UTC # |
btw, what's "Group: personalcontacts" in the dropdown?

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:31 UTC # |
yikes! after i dropped in your plugin, i started seeing this error when commenting - the comment when submitted (reply to post etc) returns this error, then i click "back" in the brwoser and the comment is there...

is this related to the plugin? any idea? i did not see it until then...so i removed the plugin that you uploaded but am still seeing the error!

Input Array does not match ?: SELECT * FROM elgguser_flags WHERE flag = 'forum' AND user_id =

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/514/domains/researchzilla.com/html/lib/adodb/adodb.inc.php:390) in /home/514/domains/researchzilla.com/html/units/weblogs/weblogs_actions.php on line 201

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:48 UTC # |
That would be an access group named "personalcontacts" that you must have made before.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:48 UTC # |
I think that if you removed the plugin and the errors are still occuring, then probably it is not related to the plugin.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:51 UTC # |
i hear you, though i'm confounded! any idea what that error means? the plugin is now out of the mod folder, but still appears when a comment is added to any post (even to my own postings as a test)

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 20:53 UTC # |
There is a reference to "forum" - do you have the forum plugin installed? If so, you could try removing that.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 21:03 UTC # |
kevin, you are an elgg shaman! it worked (actually tested it two times to make sure it was just that plugin)...but strange -do you think forum is conflicting with another mod? your access plugin is not in right now, only folio and messages, though they worked earlier..

diego, do you see any errors when posting a reply to another blog posting with the forum plugin installed at the same time as private message?

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 21:30 UTC # |
I've seen that kind of error before - it usually occurs if a plugin attempts to use a user id but the user is not logged in.
In Elgg you must have an if (isloggedin()) before running any code referring to a user id. This is especially important for SQL statements because a blank user id will cause an SQL error and cause the whole application to stop.

Kevin Jardine on Friday, 09 March 2007, 21:37 UTC # |
ah, that makes sense...though i do not know enough about it to look for the code in private messages, though oddly forum was working before (both logged in and logged out views, which is correct)...

could just the missing isloggedin variable in another plugin cause this? private messaging actualy only is visible when logged in - though i believe that's just because it appears in only the toolbarloggedin view....

btw, we oughta get a group of folks together to perhaps start an elgg live channel (irc, aim, something..) -that would be an awesome way to waste some time! ;)

daveinboston on Friday, 09 March 2007, 21:55 UTC # |
Actually it couldn't be a messages plug-in problem, because:
1. It didn't use anything related with the forum tables. It only uses the messages table.
2. It uses the 'logged_on' constant. that is defined in 'unit/users/funcion_session_start.php:
  $logged_in = isloggedin(); //TODO should probably go but maybe we should keep it // for backwards compatibility // Set logged-in status in stone define('logged_on',$logged_in);
However if its better use the isloggedin I could change it. What do you think Kevin?

Diego Andrés Ramírez Aragón on Saturday, 10 March 2007, 21:23 UTC # |
The current Elgg code seems to use all three - the constant, the variable and the function. Which should it be, Ben?

Kevin Jardine on Saturday, 10 March 2007, 22:08 UTC # |
quick note/update: i pinged tim, the creator of the forum plugin, and he sent me a newer version that he's prepping for release (0.2, 3/10/07 - today)- it resolved the display of the error that i was seeing (no longer appears) and so i wonder if it was specifically the forum plugin, or perhaps still connected to messaging...

of course, either way, if there's a standard for messaging to use then that's great because it is going to likely become a critical part of many elgg communities (thanks again diego)

daveinboston on Sunday, 11 March 2007, 00:53 UTC # |
Hello, I downloaded the zip file for this plugin. But when I went to unzip the file. I found there was no files in the zip file.

surfsupnet on Saturday, 17 March 2007, 13:46 UTC # |
This file is not available to d/l on the plugins page

it links but goes nowhere, any ideas?

Keven Ages on Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 21:16 UTC # |
I had the same problem. I did a search on google for acsext and found this:
http://pccepa3.if.usp.br/trac/demi/browser/trunk/elgg/mod/acsext
Somebody's trac of elgg with acsext. I copy/pasted all the files from their file browser. Watch out that you remove all trailing spaces as they will cause you problems.

George on Friday, 06 April 2007, 04:35 UTC # |
this oughta be up on the svn for elgg...

daveinboston on Sunday, 08 April 2007, 22:11 UTC # |