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

BROWSER_VIEW View directory listings in the repository browser
LOG_VIEW View revision logs of files and directories in the repository browser
FILE_VIEW View files in the repository browser
CHANGESET_VIEW View repository check-ins

Ticket System

TICKET_VIEW View existing tickets and perform ticket queries
TICKET_CREATE Create new tickets
TICKET_APPEND Add comments or attachments to tickets
TICKET_CHGPROP Modify ticket properties (priority, assignment, keywords, etc.) except description field, cc field add/remove when logged in or set email to pref
TICKET_MODIFY Includes both TICKET_APPEND and TICKET_CHGPROP, and in addition allows resolving tickets
TICKET_EDIT_CC Full modify cc field
TICKET_EDIT_DESCRIPTION Modify description field
TICKET_ADMIN All TICKET_* permissions, plus the deletion of ticket attachments and modification of the description field

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

Roadmap

MILESTONE_VIEW View a milestone
MILESTONE_CREATE Create a new milestone
MILESTONE_MODIFY Modify existing milestones
MILESTONE_DELETE Delete milestones
MILESTONE_ADMIN All MILESTONE_* permissions
ROADMAP_VIEW View the roadmap page, is not (yet) the same as MILESTONE_VIEW, see #4292
ROADMAP_ADMIN to be removed with #3022, replaced by MILESTONE_ADMIN

Reports

REPORT_VIEW View reports, i.e. the "view tickets" link.
REPORT_SQL_VIEW View the underlying SQL query of a report
REPORT_CREATE Create new reports
REPORT_MODIFY Modify existing reports
REPORT_DELETE Delete reports
REPORT_ADMIN All REPORT_* permissions

Wiki System

WIKI_VIEW View existing wiki pages
WIKI_CREATE Create new wiki pages
WIKI_MODIFY Change wiki pages
WIKI_DELETE Delete wiki pages and attachments
WIKI_ADMIN All WIKI_* permissions, plus the management of readonly pages.

Permissions

PERMISSION_GRANT add/grant a permission
PERMISSION_REVOKE remove/revoke a permission
PERMISSION_ADMIN All PERMISSION_* permissions

Others

TIMELINE_VIEW View the timeline page
SEARCH_VIEW View and execute search queries
CONFIG_VIEW Enables additional pages on About Trac that show the current configuration or the list of installed plugins
EMAIL_VIEW Shows email addresses even if `trac show_email_addresses` configuration option is `false`?

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