[opencms-dev] Adding Website Membership

[M Butcher]

Alex,

Thank you _very much_ for the detailed answer. That really helps.

Right now, we need a place to store much of the information that is
written to the CMS_WEBUSER table, so I will probably use it in addition
to the CMS_USER table. Perhaps if I generate a useful module released
under GPL, you'd consider keeping the table?

I'll do my best to send my patches to you. I'd love to see that
functionality included in OpenCMS.

Again, thanks.

Matt

On Thu, 2003-06-26 at 01:34, Alexander Kandzior wrote:
> Matt,
> 
> the "webuser" concept in OpenCms 5 is this:
> 
> Usually, only Administrators can create new users. This of course is a
> normal security requirement. However, for a website you need something
> where a user is able to basically create his own account. 
> 
> This is where the webuser concept comes in. There are method in the
> com.opencms.file.CmsObject which allow you to add / manage web users.
> These users are handled by OpenCms internally in the same table
> CMS_USERS like standard users. The only thing really different is a flag
> in the DB which tells the system that this users is a web user. Web
> users can be created without Admin permission, so a user is able to
> create his own account.
> 
> Some securiy mechanisms prevent that users flagged as "web users" can
> log in to the system. See class com.opencms.workplace.CmsLoginNew for an
> example. 
> 
> The current User management backoffice "hides" all web users from the
> view. This however could be tweaked in the core without to much effort
> so that e.g. a button could be added "also show me all the web users".
> Again, as the web users share the table with the default users this
> should be only a small change, perhaps to the db queries involved. If
> you (or anyone else) fells implied to do this please don't forget to
> send a patch to me so that I can add it to the next releaase (hint, hint
> ... ;-)
> 
> The table CMS_WEBUSERS was added by a third party who had a developed a
> module that requires additional information to the web users. So there
> was a relation form the CMS_USER table to the CMS_WEBUSERS table where
> the PK was the user id. The CMS_WEBUSERS table only hold additional user
> information that might be required by the website application. 
> 
> As I already said since the module was unfortunaltly never made
> available as open source, we will probably remove the CMS_WEBUSERS table
> from the next release since it just causes confusion. However, the
> concet of the web users itself is still valid and will remain. 
> 
> 
> Best Regards,
> Alex.
> 
> Alexander Kandzior
> Alkacon Software - The OpenCms Experts
> http://www.alkacon.com
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org 
> > [mailto:opencms-dev-admin at opencms.org] On Behalf Of M Butcher
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 6:46 PM
> > To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
> > Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] Adding Website Membership
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks... I should have known that the answer would have been 
> > posted the day before I joined the list. Serves me right for 
> > not reading the archives. Argh.
> > 
> > So, I've given the website membership thing a lot of thought, 
> > but I'm just not sure if I understand it well enough (yet) to 
> > solve the problem. There are (at least) two options for 
> > giving website users accounts: 1) I can take the 
> > CMS_USER/GROUP stuff that is used already, and try to model 
> > website users in that context. The other option is to create 
> > a completely separate user management system (which is what 
> > I'm guessing CMS_WEBUSER was for).
> > 
> > Website users will probably have to (from time to time) 
> > submit stuff to the site, but I'd rather handle that through 
> > traditional form interfaces rather than give them access to 
> > the CMS interface, so (at this point) there is no need for 
> > the website user to be included in the permissions that 
> > govern the CMS interface -- which is why a separate user 
> > management system is possible.
> > 
> > If anyone has thoughts on this, or has done something 
> > similar, I'd appreciate hearing from you. I'd rather not make 
> > a bad design decision because of my own ignorance. ;-)
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Matt
> > 
> > On Sat, 2003-06-21 at 16:08, Thomas März wrote:
> > > M Butcher <mbutcher at grcomputing.net> writes:
> > > > Not finding anything obvious about this in the OpenCMS 
> > > > documentation, I had figured I would just develop my own, 
> > but then I 
> > > > noticed that there is a table in the database called 
> > "CMS_WEBUSERS" 
> > > > which happens to have all of the fields I would need anyway.
> > > http://mail.opencms.org/pipermail/opencms-dev/2003q2/005421.html
> > > 
> > > Best Regards,
> > > Thomas März
> > > 
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> > -- 
> > M Butcher <mbutcher at grcomputing.net> 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> 
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-- 
M Butcher <mbutcher at grcomputing.net>