Permissions

Permission overview

A new User does not have permissions for any part of the system, unless they are explicitly given access. To get access they need to inherit Roles, typically assigned to the User Group they belong to.

Each Role can contain one or more Policies. A Policy is a rule that gives access to a single function in a module. For example, a section/assign Policy allows the User to assign content to Sections.

When you add a Policy to a Role, you can also restrict it using one or more Limitations. A Policy with a Limitation will only apply when the condition in the Limitation is fulfilled. For example, a content/publish Policy with a ContentType Limitation on the "Blog Post" Content Type will allow the User to publish only Blog Posts, and not other content.

A Limitation, like a Policy, specifies what a User can do, not what they can't do. A Section Limitation, for example, gives the User access to the selected Section, not prohibits it.

See Available Limitations for further information.

Combining Policies

Policies on one Role are connected with the and relation, not or, so when Policy has more than one Limitation, all of them have to apply.

If you want to combine more than one Limitation with the or relation, not and, you can split your Policy in two, each with one of these Limitations.

Assigning Roles to Users

Every User or User Group can have many roles. A User can also belong to many groups, for example, Administrators, Editors, Subscribers.

It is best practice to avoid assigning Roles to users directly. Instead, try to organize your content so that it can be covered with general Roles assigned to User Groups.

Using Groups is easier to manage and more secure. It also improves system performance. The more Role assignments and complex Policies you add for a given User, the more complex the search/load queries will be, because they always take permissions into account.

Use Cases

Here are a few examples of sets of Policies you can use to get some common permission configurations.

Enter back end interface

To allow the User to enter the Back Office interface and view all content, you need to set the following Policies:

• user/login
• content/read
• content/versionread
• section/view
• content/reverserelatedlist

These Policies will be necessary for all other cases below that require access to the content structure.

Create and publish content

To create and publish content, the user must additionally have the following Policies:

• content/create
• content/edit
• content/publish

This also lets the user copy and move content, as well as add new Locations to a Content item (but not remove them!).

Create content without publishing

This option can be used together with Ibexa DXP's content review options. Using the following Policies, the User is able to create content, but can't publish it; instead, they must send it for review to another User with proper permissions (for example, senior editor, proofreader, etc.).

• content/create
• content/edit

Note that without Ibexa DXP this setup should not be used, as it will not allow the User to continue working with their content.

Restrict editing to part of the tree

If you want to let the User create or edit content, but only in one part of the content tree, you need to use Limitations. Three Limitations that could be used here are Section Limitation, Location Limitation and Subtree of Location Limitation.

Let's assume you have two Folders under your Home: Blog and Articles. You can let a User create content for the blogs, but not in Articles by adding a Subtree of Location Limitation on the Blog Content item. This will allow the User to publish content anywhere under this Location in the structure.

A Section Limitation can be used similarly, but a Section does not have to belong to the same Subtree of Location in the content structure, any Locations can be assigned to it.

If you add a Location Limitation and point to the same Location, the User will be able to publish content directly under the selected Location, but not anywhere deeper in its Subtree of Location.

Multi-file upload

Creating content through multi-file upload is treated in the same way as regular creation. To enable upload, you need you set the following permissions:

• content/create
• content/read
• content/publish

You can control what Content items can be uploaded and where using Limitations on the content/create and content/publish Policies.

A Location Limitation limits uploading to a specific Location in the tree. A Content Type Limitation controls the Content Types that are allowed. For example, you can set the Location Limitation on a Pictures Folder, and add a Content Type Limitation which only allows Content items of type Image. This ensures that only files of type image can be uploaded, and only to the Pictures Folder.

Manage Locations

To add a new Location to a Content item, the Policies required for publishing content are enough. To allow the User to remove a Location, you need to grant them the following Policies:

• content/remove
• content/manage_locations

Hiding and revealing Location requires one more Policy: content/hide.

Removing content

To send content to Trash, the User needs to have the content/remove Policy.

To remove an archived version of content, the User must have the content/versionremove Policy.

Further manipulation of Trash requires the content/restore Policy to restore items from Trash, and content/cleantrash to completely delete all content from the Trash.

Caution

With the content/cleantrash Policy, the User can empty the Trash even if they do not have access to the trashed content, e.g. because it belonged to a Section they do not have permissions for.

Registering Users

To allow anonymous users to register through the /register route, you need to grant the user/register Policy to the Anonymous User Group.

Admin

To access the Admin in the Back Office the User must have the setup/administrate Policy. This will allow the User to view the languages and Content Types.

Additional Policies are needed for each section of the Admin.

System Information

• setup/system_info to view the System Information tab

Sections

• section/view to see and access the Section list
• section/edit to add and edit Sections
• section/assign to assign Sections to content

Languages

• content/translations to add and edit languages

Content Types/action

• Content Type/create, Content Type/update, Content Type/delete to add, modify and remove Content Types

Object states

• state/administrate to view a list of Object states, add and edit them
• state/assign to assign Objects states to Content

Roles

• role/read to view the list of Roles in Admin
• role/create, role/update, role/assign and role/delete to manage Roles

Users

• content/view to view the list of Users

Users are treated like other content, so to create and modify them the User needs to have the same permissions as for managing other Content items.

Dxp

Editorial workflows

You can control which stages in an editorial workflow the user can work with.

Do this by adding the WorkflowStageLimitation to content Policies such as content/edit or content/publish.

You can also control which transitions the user can pass content through. Do this by using the workflow/change_stage Policy together with the WorkflowTransitionLimitation.

For example, to enable the user to edit only content in the "Design" stage and to pass it after creating design to the "Proofread stage", use following permissions:

• content/edit with WorkflowStageLimitation set to "Design".
• workflow/change_stage with WorkflowTransitionLimitation set to to_proofreading

Available Policies

Module	Function	Effect
all modules	all functions	grant all available permissions
content	read	view the content both in front and back end
	diff	unused
	view_embed	view content embedded in another Content item (even when the User is not allowed to view it as an individual Content item)
	create	create new content. Note: even without this Policy the User is able to enter edit mode, but cannot finalize work with the Content item.
	edit	edit existing content
	publish	publish content. Without this Policy, the User can only save drafts or send them for review (in Ibexa DXP)
	manage_locations	remove Locations and send content to Trash
	hide	hide and reveal content Locations
	reverserelatedlist	see all content that a Content item relates to (even when the User is not allowed to view it as an individual Content items)
	translate	unused
	remove	remove Locations and send content to Trash
	versionread	view content after publishing, and to preview any content in the Site mode
	versionremove	remove archived content versions
	translations	manage the language list in Admin
	urltranslator	manage URL aliases of a Content item
	pendinglist	unused
	restore	restore content from Trash
	cleantrash	empty the Trash (even when the User does not have access to individual Content items)
Content Type	update	modify existing Content Types. Also required to create new Content Types
	create	create new Content Types. Also required to edit exiting Content Types
	delete	delete Content Types
state	assign	assign Object states to Content items
	administrate	view, add and edit Object states
role	assign	assign Roles to Users and User Groups
	update	modify existing Roles
	create	create new Roles
	delete	delete Roles
	read	view the Roles list in Admin. Required for all other role-related Policies
section	assign	assign Sections to content
	edit	edit existing Sections and create new ones
	view	view the Sections list in Admin. Required for all other section-related Policies
setup	administrate	access Admin
	install	unused
	setup	unused
	system_info	view the System Information tab in Admin
site	view	view the "Sites" in the top navigation
	create	create sites in the Site Factory
	edit	edit sites in the Site Factory
	delete	delete sites from the Site Factory
	change_status	change status of the public accesses of sites to Live or Offline in the Site Factory
user	login	log in to the application
	password	unused
	preferences	access and set user preferences
	register	register using the /register route
	selfedit	unused
	activation	unused
workflow	change_stage	change stage in the specified workflow
comparison	view	view version comparison
segment	read	load Segment information
	create	create Segments
	update	update Segments
	remove	remove Segments
	assign_to_user	assign Segments to Users
segment_group	read	load Segment Group information
	create	create Segment Groups
	update	update Segment Groups
	remove	remove Segment Groups

Permissions for custom controllers

You can control access to a custom controller by implementing the performAccessCheck() method.

In the following example the user does not have access to the controller unless they have the section/view Policy:

use eZ\Publish\Core\MVC\Symfony\Security\Authorization\Attribute;

public function performAccessCheck(): void
{
    parent:performAccessCheck();
    $this->denyAccessUnlessGranted(new Attribute('section', 'view'));
}

Attribute accepts three arguments:

• module is the Policy module (e.g. content)
• function is the function inside the module (e.g. read)
• limitations are optional Limitations to check against. Here you can provide two keys:
  • valueObject is the object you want to check for, for example ContentInfo.
  • targets are a table of value objects that are the target of the operation. For example, to check if content can be assigned to a Section, provide the Section as targets. targets accept Location, Object state and Section objects.

Checking user access

To check if a user has access to an operation, use the isGranted() method. For example, to check if content can be assigned to a Section:

$hasAccess = $this->isGranted(
    new Attribute( 'section', 'assign', array( 'valueObject' => $contentInfo, 'targets' => $section ) )
);

You can also use the permission resolver (eZ\Publish\API\Repository\PermissionResolver). The canUser() method checks if the user can perform a given action with the selected object.

For example: canUser('content', 'edit', $content, $location ); checks the content/edit permission for the provided Content item at the provided Location.

Blocking access to controller action

To block access to a specific action of the controller, add the following to the action's definition:

$this->denyAccessUnlessGranted(new Attribute('state', 'administrate'));