Trac Permissions

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

Permission privileges are managed using the trac-admin tool.

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".

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 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
TICKET_MODIFY Includes both TICKET_APPEND and TICKET_CHGPROP, and in addition allows resolving tickets
TICKET_ADMIN All TICKET_* permissions, plus the deletion of ticket attachments and modification of the description field

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

Reports

REPORT_VIEW View reports
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.

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

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

Permission 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.

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

Granting privileges to the special user anonymous can be used to control what an anonymous user can do before they have logged in.

In the same way, privileges granted to the special user authenticated will apply to any authenticated (logged in) user.


See also: TracAdmin, TracGuide and  FineGrainedPermissions