Re: gnats/465: Can't get user authorization to work

[Yngve Svendsen]

Re: 
http://bugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=gnats&pr=465 


> I followed the instructions to set up users on GNATS: 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnats/doc/4_0_beta_snapshot/Access-Control.html#Access%20Control 
> In this documentation, it mentions two files in several directories to 
> control user access: gnatsd.user_access and gnatsd.host_access.  The 
> host_access file seems to do its job, especially in the gnats 
> directory.  However, I can't override any users to have higher access.

You have probably run into a poorly documented detail in how GNATS 
authentication works. Essentially, GNATS scans the access files 
sequentially until it finds a match. Now, the default gnatsd.user_access 
for instance has a single entry "*::view:". If you add entries _after_ this 
one, they will not be honoured, since GNATS will never have to read farther 
than this entry in order to find a match. The result is that all users get 
view access, no matter what. Add your entries _before_ the "view" entry, 
and things should work.

 I have just committed changes to the documentation and to the files 
themselves explaining this.

> I have put entries in the user_access files in the gnats directory, in the 
> gnatsdb directory, the defaults directory under gnats, but nothing seems 
> to work.

If you have a default configuration of GNATS, the gnatsd.user_access file 
should be located in the gnats-adm subdirectory of the database directory. 
This will specify access rights for this particular database.

> On the Login screen for this database, you actually get a password box to 
> show up.  I don't even get that.

Have you configured Gnatsweb to ask for a password? Look at the 
configuration section of gnatsweb.pl.

> Is there more recent documentation that can help me?

You are apparently running beta 1 of GNATS 4. I suggest you download and 
install beta 2 instead, and look at the docs that come with that. A few 
changes were made to the docs compared to what you can find on the 
www.gnu.org website. Anyway, beta 2 is far more stable than beta 1, and it 
comes with a much improved beta version of Gnatsweb 4.

Yngve Svendsen
Gnatsweb maintainer