Cannot register new users when restricting webread access to only registered users of a particular group

I have the following web preference setting in Main Web Preferences

   * Set ALLOWWEBVIEW = Main.RegistrationAgent, Main.AdminUser, XGroup
   * Set ALLOWWEBCHANGE = Main.RegistrationAgent, Main.AdminUser, XGroup
   * Set ALLOWWEBRENAME = Main.RegistrationAgent, Main.AdminUser, XGroup

This setting should allow me to restrict access to people who are in the group "XGroup" or the administrators. It should allow a WikiGuest to register. It would then require an administrator to add the newly registered users to the group "XGroup" in order to read and/or change the pages.

Unfortunately, when I access my Wiki, and I am prompted for a login, if I press the "Register" link, the page simply refreshes to the login screen again.

I have discovered that I can register new users if I add "WikiGuest" to the ALLOWWEBVIEW flag, but I only want registered users in the Group "XGroup" to be able to view the pages.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-- PiercenOliver -07 Jul 2011

Okay, now I see the problem. You can set preferences in different places - topics inherit preferences in a hierarchical fashion. See System.AccessControls and System.PreferenceSettings for more documentation.

If you want a topic to have "special" ACLs that are different to the preferences normally inherited from WebPreferences, you just need to set those different ACLs on the topic itself.

Specifically, you just need to

   * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = XGroup, WikiGuest

to your UserRegistration topic. You can hide it inside HTML comments or you can create a (hidden) meta-preference (this creates a preference in the topic MetaData) by going to "more topic actions..." and selecting "edit settings".

P.S. I know that we have many examples mentioning AdminUser in ACLs, but I honestly don't know why... the code will let an adminuser do something even if they aren't in the list, that's the whole point of an AdminUser.

-- PaulHarvey - 07 Jul 2011