Going with a simple security model

For any site, there's a balance between total openness and its possible chaos to total restriction and the possibility of no users.

Tikiwiki allows a rich permissions model that we'll use as we enable each feature. For now, let's just deal with how we allow people to register for the site, balancing openness and restriction. We'll reuse the existing user classes of "unregistered" and "registered". As we'll see, we can give basic reading permissions to "unregistered" and then greater permissions to the "registered", such as create and edit wiki pages, leave comments, etc.

The first place to stop is "admin home" and then "login".

You'll see the following form:


Clcik on the highlighted items. First, you want to let users register. Next, you want to prevent spam bots from registering. This option forces an anti-bot code to be entered. Finally, check the "validate users by email" to capture an email address. Not only will this help prevent spam, but it's handy for the users when they forget passwords or you need to communicate with them.

After checking these boxes, drop down to the bottom of the form and save your settings.



That's all you need to do to setup a reasonable registration model. Users who register will then be in the "registered" group (go figure, huh?). As you add features, such as blogging, forums, and wiki pages, you can grant permissions to the registered users.

As a warning, this is no "field of dreams" and even though you have built it, it's no guarantee that anyone will come to register. We'll have to deal with website advertising in a future blog. For now, get your friends and coworkers to use your site.

In the next post, we'll deal with deal with attractiveness. At this point, we have only a plain home page.