User Guide: Account Roles

Phorge Administrator and User Documentation (Application User Guides)

Describes account roles like "Administrator", "Disabled", "Bot" and "Mailing List".

Overview

When you create a user account, you can set roles like "Administrator", "Disabled", "Bot" and "Mailing List". This document explains what these roles mean.

Administrators

Administrators are normal users with a few extra capabilities. Their primary role is to keep things running smoothly, and they are not all-powerful. In Phorge, administrators are more like janitors.

Administrators can create, delete, enable, disable, and approve user accounts. Various applications have a few other capabilities which are reserved for administrators by default, but these can be changed to provide access to more or fewer users.

Administrators are not in complete control of the system. Administrators can not login as other users or act on behalf of other users. They can not destroy data or make changes without leaving an audit trail. Administrators also can not bypass object privacy policies.

Limiting the power of administrators means that administrators can't abuse their power (they have very little power to abuse), a malicious administrator can't do much damage, and an attacker who compromises an administrator account is limited in what they can accomplish.

Bot Accounts

Bot ("Robot") accounts are accounts for bots and scripts which need to interface with the system, but are not regular users. Generally, when you write scripts that use the Conduit API, you should create a bot account for them.

The Bot role for an account can not be changed after the account is created. This prevents administrators form changing a normal user into a bot, retrieving their Conduit certificate, and then changing them back (which would allow administrators to gain other users' credentials).

Bot accounts differ from normal accounts in that:

• they can not log in to the web UI;
• administrators can access them, edit settings, and retrieve credentials;
• they do not receive email;
• they appear with lower precedence in the UI when selecting users, with a "Bot" note (because it usually does not make sense to, for example, assign a task to a bot).

Mailing Lists

Mailing List accounts let you represent an existing external mailing list (like a Google Group or a Mailman list) as a user. You can subscribe this user to objects (like tasks) to send them mail.

Because these accounts are also user accounts, they can be added to projects and affected by policies. The list won't receive mail about anything the underlying user account can't see.

The Mailing List role for an account can not be changed after the account is created.

Some options can be configured for mailing lists by browsing to the list user's profile and clicking Edit Settings. You can change the address for a list by editing "Email Addresses" here, choose the language and format for email the list receives, and customize which actions the list is notified about.

Mailing List accounts differ from normal accounts in that they:

• can not log in;
• can not access the Conduit API;
• administrators can access them and edit settings; and
• they appear with lower precedence in the UI when selecting users, with a "Mailing List" note.

Disabled Users

Disabled Users are accounts that are no longer active. Generally, when someone leaves a project (e.g., leaves your company, or their internship or contract ends) you should disable their account to terminate their access to the system. Disabled users:

• can not login;
• can not access the Conduit API;
• do not receive email; and
• appear with lower precedence in the UI when selecting users, with a "Disabled" note (because it usually does not make sense to, for example, assign a task to a disabled user).

While users can also be deleted, it is strongly recommended that you disable them instead, particularly if they interacted with any objects in the system. If you delete a user entirely, you won't be able to find things they used to own or restore their data later if they rejoin the project.