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Extension:Lockdown

Issue tracker: #MediaWiki-extensions-Lockdown
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Lockdown
Release status: stable
Implementation User rights
Description Implements per-namespace group permissions
Author(s) Daniel Kinzler (Duesentriebtalk)
MediaWiki 1.31+
PHP 5.5+
License GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download
Download extension
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README
Parameters
  • $wgActionLockdown
  • $wgNamespacePermissionLockdown
  • $wgSpecialPageLockdown
Hooks used
Quarterly downloads 371 (Ranked 9th)
Translate the Lockdown extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Issues Open tasks · Report a bug

The Lockdown extension implements a way to restrict access to specific namespaces and special pages to a given set of user groups. This provides a more finely grained security model than the one provided by the default $wgGroupPermissions and $wgNamespaceProtection settings.

The following pages about the security model used by MediaWiki per default may be helpful to understand the instructions below:

Installation

  • Download and move the extracted Lockdown folder to your extensions/ directory.
    Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
    git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Lockdown
  • Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file: 
    wfLoadExtension( 'Lockdown' );
  • Configure as required
  • Yes Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Example

To use Lockdown to:

  • prevent access to Special:Export to logged in users (registered user)
  • restrict editing of the project namespace to logged in users (registered users)

You can then use the following: 

$wgSpecialPageLockdown['Export'] = [ 'user' ];
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PROJECT]['edit'] = [ 'user' ];

See below for an explanation and more examples.

Configuration

Note that the Lockdown extension can only be used to restrict access, not to grant it. If access is denied by some built-in setting of MediaWiki, it cannot be allowed using the Lockdown extension.

$wgSpecialPageLockdown

$wgSpecialPageLockdown allows you to specify for each special page which user groups have access to it. For example, to limit the use of Special:Export to logged in users, use this in LocalSettings.php: 

$wgSpecialPageLockdown['Export'] = [ 'user' ];

Note that some special pages "natively" require a specific permission. For example, Special:MovePage, which can be used to move pages, requires the "move" permission (granted only to logged-in users per default). This restriction can not be overridden using the Lockdown extension.

Some special page titles are not capitalized the way they appear on-wiki. For instance, Special:RecentChanges is Recentchanges internally, so to restrict it you need: 

$wgSpecialPageLockdown['Recentchanges'] = [ 'user' ];

A full list of special page titles is available in the "MessagesEn.php" file ($specialPageAliases array) or alternatively use the "siteinfo" API module like e.g. /api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=specialpagealiases in your wiki.

$wgActionLockdown

$wgActionLockdown allows you to specify for each action which user groups have access to it. For example, to limit the use of the history page to logged in users, use this in LocalSettings.php: 

$wgActionLockdown['history'] = [ 'user' ];

Note that some actions can not be locked down this way. In particular, it will not work for the ajax action.

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown lets you restrict which user groups have which permissions on which namespace. For example, to grant only members of the sysop group write access to the project namespace, use this: 

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PROJECT]['edit'] = [ 'sysop' ];

Wildcards for either the namespace or the permission (but not both at once) are supported. More specific definitions take precedence: 

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PROJECT]['*'] = [ 'sysop' ];
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PROJECT]['read'] = [ '*' ];

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown['*']['move'] = [ 'autoconfirmed' ];

The first two lines restrict all permissions in the project namespace to members of the sysop group, but still allow reading to anyone. The third line limits page moves in all namespaces to members of the autoconfirmed group.

Note that this way, you cannot grant permissions that have not been allowed by the build-in $wgGroupPermissions setting. The following does not allow regular users to patrol edits in the main namespace: 

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_MAIN]['patrol'] = [ 'user' ];

Instead, you would have to grant this right in $wgGroupPermissions first, and then restrict it again using $wgNamespacePermissionLockdown: 

$wgGroupPermissions['user']['patrol'] = true;

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown['*']['patrol'] = [ 'sysop' ];
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_MAIN]['patrol'] = [ 'user' ];

Note that when restricting read-access to a namespace, the restriction can easily be circumvented if the user has read access to any other namespace: by including a read-protected page as a template, it can be made visible. To avoid this, you would have to forbid the use of pages from that namespace as templates, by adding the namespace's ID to $wgNonincludableNamespaces : 

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PROJECT]['read'] = [ 'user' ];
$wgNonincludableNamespaces[] = NS_PROJECT;

You can of course also use Lockdown with custom namespaces defined using $wgExtraNamespaces : 

// define custom namespaces
$wgExtraNamespaces[100] = 'Private';
$wgExtraNamespaces[101] = 'Private_talk';

// restrict "read" permission to logged in users
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[100]['read'] = [ 'user' ];
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[101]['read'] = [ 'user' ];

// prevent inclusion of pages from that namespace
$wgNonincludableNamespaces[] = 100;
$wgNonincludableNamespaces[] = 101;

Note that custom namespaces should always be defined in pairs, the namespace proper (with an even id), and the associated talk namespace (with an odd id).

If you want to use constants to refer to your namespaces, you need to define them: 

// define constants for your custom namespaces, for a more readable configuration
define('NS_PRIVATE', 100);
define('NS_PRIVATE_TALK', 101);

// define custom namespaces
$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_PRIVATE] = 'Private';
$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_PRIVATE_TALK] = 'Private_talk';

// restrict "read" permission to logged in users
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PRIVATE]['read'] = [ 'user' ];
$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown[NS_PRIVATE_TALK]['read'] = [ 'user' ];

// prevent inclusion of pages from that namespace
$wgNonincludableNamespaces[] = NS_PRIVATE;
$wgNonincludableNamespaces[] = NS_PRIVATE_TALK;

You could also use array_fill() to restrict multiple namespaces at once, e.g. if you wanted to restrict namespaces 0 to 2009 to editing by sysops only: 

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown = array_fill( 0, 2010, [  'edit' => [ 'sysop'  ] ] );

$wgNamespacePermissionLockdown vs $wgActionLockdown

$wgActionLockdownis checked considerably sooner (in the MediaWikiPerformAction hook) in the request-handling process than $wgNamespacePermissionLockdown (which is checked in the getUserPermissionsErrors hook).

If an action that $wgActionLockdown does not permit is attempted, a permission error is displayed. Likewise, $wgNamespacePermissionLockdown lets the end user know which groups are allowed to perform the action.

Managing groups

You can control which user belongs to which groups with the page Special:Userrights. Only existing groups will be proposed, but you can "create" a new group by creating an entry for it in $wgGroupPermissions (even if you don't actually need to set a permission there, but it has to appear on the left hand side of the array). For example: 

$wgGroupPermissions['somegroupname']['read'] = true;

For more information, see Help:User rights, Manual:User rights, and Manual:User rights management.

Additional measures

Images and other uploaded files

Images and other uploaded files still can be seen and included on any page. Protections on the Image namespace do not prevent that. See Manual:Image Authorisation for information on how to prevent unauthorized access to images. See also:

Known issues

Lockdown is known to be broken for MW 1.27.x to 1.30.x [1]. Possible side-effects of using it include:

  • Incomplete list of namespaces showing under the Advanced tab of Special:Search and on the special page for ReplaceText
  • Searchbox no longer offering autocompletion for certain namespaces

A workaround may be to list all namespaces under $wgContentNamespaces , but success is not guaranteed. Another temporary solution is to use a version before the breaking commits, as detailed in Topic:Tr4xxpln3fnpz3eu.

See also

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