How about adding a new local flag "access-restriction" which applies the page/category access restriction patch to MediaWiki? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Page_access_restriction_with_MediaWiki The patch adds a new usergroup "viewrestrict" and a new tab that allows to restrict a page or category. Restricted pages or categories can only be viewed/edited by members of the usergroup "viewrestrict". This patch is very useful if you are using MediaWiki i.e. as an intranet CMS and would like to exclude some pages/categories from public viewing.
I've just seen that the patch will not be available for the 1.7.x branch. Instead, the developer is working on an extension. From his blog: > The patch doesn't work for 1.7.1. As you see many modifications are > rejected when patching, due to MW changes. > I think I will not update this patch anymore. I am thinking about an > extension, what is more stable when MW updates. > I cannot give any date for the first release, just subscribe to the > mailing list to keep in touch :) > (restrict-mediawiki-list-subscribe@conseil-recherche-innovation.net)
The better workaround is to make separate mediawiki databases for Private and Public use, that's how we do it here. Mediawiki is not the right tool to have a full user right and group right system, there is many other wikis that can do that job better and are designed from scratch as such. I could be selfish and just say, won't happend or say my vote will be against it, but I'll investigate and reply a bit later, I can see this having real use in some environment.
I'd like to embrace the idea to include only patches that are close to upstream, e.g. official modules written by mediawiki that perform that certain task to be enabled via use-flags (as said). So far, as the given patch doesn't even work, I'd like to encourage you to use apache's <Location> and authentification feature to implement your needs. Despite this way, I'd as well recomment the way tchiwam proposed, too - as it even holds both parts distinct and though a little cleaner :)
Look atn the section Access of http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings I might have a good suggestion, we could setup the default settings so that on the admin user (bureaucrat) could create a new account by default instead of having anyone and everyone as a default. We could also restrict the anonymous viewing to the login and Main page. We could make this: 1) The default setting for account creation and anon view rigths 2) Only the the account creation rights stricter by default. 3) The setting with restrict use-flag 4) Show this link in the postinstall My favorite choices would be in this order 2, 4, 3, 1
OK I poked around a lot and it seems the safest way to do this and keep close to the instructions would be to added these line at config time. I've done that, it's a hack but I'd like people to consider testing it. Everyone try: USE=restrict emerge =www-apps/mediawiki-1.8.2 This will let only the sysop to create new accounts, read pages etc etc... you can then open up the wiki little by little in a safe and controlled manner. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Preventing_Access
I will leave this feature in until I will stabilize, if there is no comments on it before that I will take it off.
