Trac Permissions

Trac uses a simple, case sensitive, permission system to control what users can and can't access.

Permission privileges are managed using the trac-admin tool or (new in version 0.11) the General / Permissions panel in the Admin tab of the web interface.

In addition to the default permission policy described in this page, it is possible to activate additional permission policies by enabling plugins and listing them in the [trac] permission_policies configuration entry in the TracIni. See TracFineGrainedPermissions for more details.

Non-authenticated users accessing the system are assigned the name "anonymous". Assign permissions to the "anonymous" user to set privileges for anonymous/guest users. The parts of Trac that a user does not have the privileges for will not be displayed in the navigation. In addition to these privileges, users can be granted additional individual rights in effect when authenticated and logged into the system. All logged in users belong to the virtual group "authenticated", which inherits permissions from "anonymous".

Graphical Admin Tab

This feature is new in version 0.11.

To access this tab, a user must have one of the following permissions: TRAC_ADMIN, PERMISSION_ADMIN, PERMISSION_GRANT, PERMISSION_REVOKE. The permissions can be granted using the trac-admin command (more on trac-admin below):

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob TRAC_ADMIN

Then, the user bob will be able to see the Admin tab, and can then access the permissions menu. This menu will allow you to perform all the following actions, but from the browser without requiring root access to the server (just the correct permissions for your user account). Use at least one lowercase character in user names, as all-uppercase names are reserved for permissions.

1. 
2. 
3. 

An easy way to quickly secure a new Trac install is to run the above command on the anonymous user, install the ​AccountManagerPlugin, create a new admin account graphically and then remove the TRAC_ADMIN permission from the anonymous user.

From the graphical admin tab, users with PERMISSION_GRANT will only be allowed to grant permissions that they possess, and users with PERMISSION_REVOKE will only be allowed to revoke permissions that they possess. For example, a user cannot grant MILESTONE_ADMIN unless they have PERMISSION_GRANT and MILESTONE_ADMIN, and they cannot revoke MILESTONE_ADMIN unless they have PERMISSION_REVOKE and MILESTONE_ADMIN. PERMISSION_ADMIN just grants the user both PERMISSION_GRANT and PERMISSION_REVOKE, and users with TRAC_ADMIN can grant or revoke any permission.

Available Privileges

To enable all privileges for a user, use the TRAC_ADMIN permission. Having TRAC_ADMIN is like being root on a *NIX system: it will allow you to perform any operation.

Otherwise, individual privileges can be assigned to users for the various different functional areas of Trac (note that the privilege names are case-sensitive):

Repository Browser

BROWSER_VIEW	View directory listings in the repository browser
LOG_VIEW	View revision logs of files and directories in the repository browser
FILE_VIEW	View files in the repository browser
CHANGESET_VIEW	View repository check-ins

Ticket System

TICKET_VIEW	View existing tickets and perform ticket queries
TICKET_CREATE	Create new tickets
TICKET_APPEND	Add comments or attachments to tickets
TICKET_CHGPROP	Modify ticket properties (priority, assignment, keywords, etc.) with the following exceptions: edit description field, add/remove other users from cc field when logged in, and set email to pref
TICKET_MODIFY	Includes both TICKET_APPEND and TICKET_CHGPROP, and in addition allows resolving tickets. Tickets can be assigned to users through a drop-down list when the list of possible owners has been restricted.
TICKET_EDIT_CC	Full modify cc field
TICKET_EDIT_DESCRIPTION	Modify description field
TICKET_EDIT_COMMENT	Modify comments
TICKET_BATCH_MODIFY	Batch modify tickets
TICKET_ADMIN	All TICKET_* permissions, plus the deletion of ticket attachments and modification of the reporter and description fields. It also allows managing ticket properties in the WebAdmin? panel.

Attention: the "view tickets" button appears with the REPORT_VIEW permission.

Roadmap

MILESTONE_VIEW	View milestones and assign tickets to milestones.
MILESTONE_CREATE	Create a new milestone
MILESTONE_MODIFY	Modify existing milestones
MILESTONE_DELETE	Delete milestones
MILESTONE_ADMIN	All MILESTONE_* permissions
ROADMAP_VIEW	View the roadmap page, is not (yet) the same as MILESTONE_VIEW, see ​#4292
ROADMAP_ADMIN	to be removed with ​#3022, replaced by MILESTONE_ADMIN

Reports

REPORT_VIEW	View reports, i.e. the "view tickets" link.
REPORT_SQL_VIEW	View the underlying SQL query of a report
REPORT_CREATE	Create new reports
REPORT_MODIFY	Modify existing reports
REPORT_DELETE	Delete reports
REPORT_ADMIN	All REPORT_* permissions

Wiki System

WIKI_VIEW	View existing wiki pages
WIKI_CREATE	Create new wiki pages
WIKI_MODIFY	Change wiki pages
WIKI_RENAME	Rename wiki pages
WIKI_DELETE	Delete wiki pages and attachments
WIKI_ADMIN	All WIKI_* permissions, plus the management of readonly pages.

Permissions

PERMISSION_GRANT	add/grant a permission
PERMISSION_REVOKE	remove/revoke a permission
PERMISSION_ADMIN	All PERMISSION_* permissions

Others

TIMELINE_VIEW	View the timeline page
SEARCH_VIEW	View and execute search queries
CONFIG_VIEW	Enables additional pages on About Trac that show the current configuration or the list of installed plugins
EMAIL_VIEW	Shows email addresses even if trac show_email_addresses configuration option is false

Creating New Privileges

To create custom permissions, for example to be used in a custom workflow, enable the optional ​tracopt.perm.config_perm_provider.ExtraPermissionsProvider component in the "Plugins" admin panel, and add the desired permissions to the [extra-permissions] section in your trac.ini. For more information, please refer to the documentation on the TracIni page after enabling the component.

Granting Privileges

You grant privileges to users using trac-admin. The current set of privileges can be listed with the following command:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission list

This command will allow the user bob to delete reports:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob REPORT_DELETE

The permission add command also accepts multiple privilege names:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob REPORT_DELETE WIKI_CREATE

Or add all privileges:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob TRAC_ADMIN

Permission Groups

There are two built-in groups, "authenticated" and "anonymous". Any user who has not logged in is automatically in the "anonymous" group. Any user who has logged in is also in the "authenticated" group. The "authenticated" group inherits permissions from the "anonymous" group. For example, if the "anonymous" group has permission WIKI_MODIFY, it is not necessary to add the WIKI_MODIFY permission to the "authenticated" group as well.

Custom groups may be defined that inherit permissions from the two built-in groups.

Permissions can be grouped together to form roles such as developer, admin, etc.

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer WIKI_ADMIN
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer REPORT_ADMIN
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add developer TICKET_MODIFY
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob developer
  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add john developer

Group membership can be checked by doing a permission list with no further arguments; the resulting output will include group memberships. Use at least one lowercase character in group names, as all-uppercase names are reserved for permissions.

Adding a New Group and Permissions

Permission groups can be created by assigning a user to a group you wish to create, then assign permissions to that group.

The following will add bob to the new group called beta_testers and then will assign WIKI_ADMIN permissions to that group. (Thus, bob will inherit the WIKI_ADMIN permission)

   $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add bob beta_testers
   $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission add beta_testers WIKI_ADMIN

Removing Permissions

Permissions can be removed using the 'remove' command. For example:

This command will prevent the user bob from deleting reports:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove bob REPORT_DELETE

Just like permission add, this command accepts multiple privilege names.

You can also remove all privileges for a specific user:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove bob '*'

Or one privilege for all users:

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projenv permission remove '*' REPORT_ADMIN

Default Permissions

By default on a new Trac installation, the anonymous user will have view access to everything in Trac, but will not be able to create or modify anything. On the other hand, the authenticated users will have the permissions to create and modify tickets and wiki pages.

anonymous

 BROWSER_VIEW 
 CHANGESET_VIEW 
 FILE_VIEW 
 LOG_VIEW 
 MILESTONE_VIEW 
 REPORT_SQL_VIEW 
 REPORT_VIEW 
 ROADMAP_VIEW 
 SEARCH_VIEW 
 TICKET_VIEW 
 TIMELINE_VIEW
 WIKI_VIEW

authenticated

 TICKET_CREATE 
 TICKET_MODIFY 
 WIKI_CREATE 
 WIKI_MODIFY  

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See also: TracAdmin, TracGuide and TracFineGrainedPermissions