Trac Permissions

Trac uses a simple, case sensitive, permission system to control what users can and can't access.

Permission privileges are managed using the trac-admin tool or (new in version 0.11) the General / Permissions panel in the Admin tab of the web interface.

In addition to the default permission policy described in this page, it is possible to activate additional permission policies by enabling plugins and listing them in the [trac] permission_policies configuration entry in the TracIni. See TracFineGrainedPermissions for more details.

Non-authenticated users accessing the system are assigned the name "anonymous". Assign permissions to the "anonymous" user to set privileges for anonymous/guest users. The parts of Trac that a user does not have the privileges for will not be displayed in the navigation. In addition to these privileges, users can be granted additional individual rights in effect when authenticated and logged into the system. All logged in users belong to the virtual group "authenticated", which inherits permissions from "anonymous".

Graphical Admin Tab

This feature is new in version 0.11.

To access this tab, a user must have TRAC_ADMIN privileges. This can be performed as follows (more on the trac-admin script below):

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob TRAC_ADMIN

Then, the user will be able to see the Admin tab, and can then access the permissions menu. This menu will allow you to perform all the following actions, but from the browser without requiring root access to the server (just the correct permissions for your user account).

An easy way to quickly secure a new Trac install is to run the above command on the anonymous user, install the ​AccountManagerPlugin, create a new admin account graphically and then remove the TRAC_ADMIN permission from the anonymous user.

Available Privileges

To enable all privileges for a user, use the TRAC_ADMIN permission. Having TRAC_ADMIN is like being root on a *NIX system: it will allow you to perform any operation.

Otherwise, individual privileges can be assigned to users for the various different functional areas of Trac (note that the privilege names are case-sensitive):

Repository Browser

Ticket System

Attention: the "view tickets" button appears with the REPORT_VIEW permission.

Roadmap

Reports

Wiki System

Permissions

Others

Granting Privileges

You grant privileges to users using trac-admin. The current set of privileges can be listed with the following command:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission list

This command will allow the user bob to delete reports:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob REPORT_DELETE

The permission add command also accepts multiple privilege names:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob REPORT_DELETE WIKI_CREATE

Or add all privileges:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob TRAC_ADMIN

Permission Groups

There are two built-in groups, "authenticated" and "anonymous".
Any user who has not logged in is automatically in the "anonymous" group.
Any user who has logged in is also in the "authenticated" group.
The "authenticated" group inherits permissions from the "anonymous" group.
eg. if the "anonymous" group has permission WIKI_MODIFY, it's not necessary to add the WIKI_MODIFY permisison to the "authenticated" group as well.

Custom groups may be defined that inherit permissions from the two built-in groups.

Permissions can be grouped together to form roles such as developer, admin, etc.

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer WIKI_ADMIN
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer REPORT_ADMIN
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer TICKET_MODIFY
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob developer
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add john developer

Group membership can be checked by doing a permission list with no further arguments; the resulting output will include group memberships. Use lowercase for group names, as uppercase is reserved for permissions.

Adding a New Group and Permissions

Permission groups can be created by assigning a user to a group you wish to create, then assign permissions to that group.

The following will add bob to the new group called beta_testers and then will assign WIKI_ADMIN permissions to that group. (Thus, bob will inherit the WIKI_ADMIN permission)

   $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob beta_testers
   $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add beta_testers WIKI_ADMIN

Removing Permissions

Permissions can be removed using the 'remove' command. For example:

This command will prevent the user bob from deleting reports:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove bob REPORT_DELETE

Just like permission add, this command accepts multiple privilege names.

You can also remove all privileges for a specific user:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove bob '*'

Or one privilege for all users:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove '*' REPORT_ADMIN

Default Permissions

By default on a new Trac installation, the anonymous user will have view access to everything in Trac, but will not be able to create or modify anything. On the other hand, the authenticated users will have the permissions to create and modify tickets and wiki pages.

anonymous

BROWSER_VIEW CHANGESET_VIEW FILE_VIEW LOG_VIEW MILESTONE_VIEW REPORT_SQL_VIEW REPORT_VIEW ROADMAP_VIEW SEARCH_VIEW TICKET_VIEW TIMELINE_VIEW WIKI_VIEW

authenticated

TICKET_CREATE TICKET_MODIFY WIKI_CREATE WIKI_MODIFY

See also: TracAdmin, TracGuide and TracFineGrainedPermissions