$Id: README.txt,v 1.4.4.2 2009-11-03 04:23:10 thehunmonkgroup Exp $ **************************************************** User Protect Module -- README written by Chad Phillips: thehunmonkgroup at yahoo dot com **************************************************** This module provides various editing protection for users. The protections can be specific to a user, or applied to all users in a role. The following protections are supported: -- username -- e-mail address -- password -- status changes -- roles -- deletion -- OpenID identities (both adding and deleting) -- all edits (any accessed via user/X/edit) When a protection is enabled for a specified user (or the protection is enabled because the user belongs to a role that has the protection), it prevents the editing operation in question that anyone might try to perform on the user -- unless an administrator who is permitted to bypass the protection is editing the specified user. The module will protect fields by disabling them at user/X/edit. User administrators may be configured to bypass specified protections, on either a global or per-administrator basis. These protections are valid both when trying to edit the user directly from their user/X/edit page, or using the mass user editing operations. The module also provides protection at the paths user/X/edit and user/X/delete, should anyone try to visit those paths directly. Note: this module is compatible with the RoleAssign module. SETTINGS: At administer -> user management -> userprotect, you'll find the settings for the module. When the module is initially enabled, the default settings are such: -- User administrators bypass all protections. -- The root user specifically bypasses all protections. -- The anonymous user (uid 0) and root user (uid 1) are protected from all edits, deletion, and OpenID operations. -- All role protections are disabled. -- The 'change own e-mail', 'change own password', and 'change own openid' permissions are enabled for authenticated users in the userprotect section at administer -> user management -> access control. This effectively amounts to no protections. It is suggested that you turn off as many default administrator bypass settings as possible, and set bypass settings for specific user administrators--this allows you to take advantage of the status, roles, deletion, openid and edit protections in a meaningful way. Because of the per-user bypass/protection settings for the anonymous and root user, this will also begin protecting those users, without compromising the root user's access to the entire site. Important note: In order to protect a user from deletion (by visiting user/X/delete directly) and/or OpenID edits (by visiting user/X/openid directly), you must enable the 'delete' and/or 'openid' protection specifically. Enabling 'all account edits' does not enable these protections! Also note that this module only provides protection against actions via the website interface--operations that a module takes directly are not protected! This module should play well with other contributed modules, but there is no guarantee that all protections will remain intact if you install modules outside of the drupal core installation. ADDING PROTECTIONS FOR A SINGLE USER: This is done at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> protected users. Any time a user is added for protection, they will initially receive the default protections enabled at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> protection defaults. ADDING PROTECTIONS FOR ROLES: This is done at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> protected roles. Be cautious about adding protections by role, or you can lock out users from things unintentionally! In particular, note the if you enable role protections for a specific role, and you have no bypasses enabled, you've effectively locked out any role editing for that role by anybody, unless you come back to the settings page and disable the role protection! ADDING ADMINISTRATOR BYPASS RULES: One of the more powerful features of the module are the administrator bypass settings. Any user that has been granted the 'administer users' permission can be configured to bypass any protection, either via the default administrator bypass settings at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> protection defaults, or via a per-administrator setting at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> administrator bypass. If a bypass is enabled for a user administrator, they will be given editing rights on that protection regardless if it is enabled for a single user or an entire role. Note that the per-administrator bypass settings override the default bypass settings. DEFAULT PROTECTION SETTINGS: Set the default protections for newly protected users at administer -> user management -> userprotect -> protection defaults. In addition, you can enable the auto-protect feature, which will automatically add the default protections to any newly created user accounts, and set default bypass options for all user administrators. HOW THE MODULE DETERMINES A PROTECTION: In order to properly use User Protect, it's important to understand how the module determines if a specified field is to be protected. Here is the basic logic: -- If the current user is a user administrator, check if they have per-administrator bypass settings. If so, then check to see if they are allowed to bypass the protection. If so, then stop the checks and allow editing of the field. -- If not, then if the current user is a user administrator, check if the default administrator bypass is enabled for the protection in question. If so, then stop the checks and allow editing of the field. -- If not, check if the user is editing their own account. If so, determine the protections for e-mail, password and openid by examining the userprotect permissions for 'change own e-mail', 'change own password' and 'change own openid', then continue with the rest of the checks below. -- If not, check if the protection is set for the individual user being edited. If so, then stop the checks here, and prevent editing of the field (this effectively means that individual protections override role protections). -- If not, then examine all the roles for the user being edited. If any of those roles have the protection enabled, then prevent editing of the field. - If not, then allow the field to be edited. Note: If a user is editing their own account, they are never protected from editing their own username, e-mail, password or OpenID. Administrators can still limit the ability of users to change their username via the role-based permission at administer -> user management -> access control.