Manual talk:Setting user groups in MediaWiki

How to make an admin without being an admin
If you came here via Google, chances are your wiki admin rights have been cut off. Here's how to restore them via the PHP command line using createAndPromote.php for Mediawiki 1.24+. If you can't get to the server command line, perhaps that would be a good place to start.

cd /maintenance php createAndPromote.php --bureaucrat --sysop

Presumably already exists so you'll get an error that says you must really use the "--force" flag. If that seems appropriate, go ahead and use it. If not, create the user via the Wiki interface instead of the above script. If even that's not possible due to wiki restrictions, then you can use the above script with a password to create a completely new administrative user.

information seems to be outdated
the text states, that only "sysop" could be provided trough Special:Userrights. That seems definitely untrue for MediaWiki Version 1.11, where all privileges can be granted and revoked in this interface - as I don't know since when this is the case, I can't fix the text in the best possible manner.
 * Fixed. --88.130.119.161 14:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Non-Wiki-Spirited, Blogging MediaWiki User Asks
I would like to use MediaWiki as a Blog. MediaWiki beats the pants off blogs. No having to delve into some back office, but double click the page and change. To use MediaWiki in this way though I would need to be able to solve the following connundra: Tim
 * 1) Is there any way of setting a global protect on all pages? If there is even one orphaned page on my wiki I guess that there #will be a spammer sending in links to casinos and worse.
 * 2) The user login message is "Create account or login in," even though people cannot login. I would like to change that message to administrator.
 * 3) Non logged in users seem to be given an IP address talk page which they can write to. Won't this get full of spam?
 * 4) Off topic but I would also like Recent Posts, Categories, Wikified Navbar areas...

wgWhitelistRead and categories
I have set up a wiki to try it out and to keep track of all the documenting I do for my graduation project. So not a wiki in the wiki spirit, I'd rather not have my work plagiarized before I publish my thesis, so I tried to restrict access using $wgWhitelistRead = array ("Main Page", "Special:Userlogin", "Wikipedia:Help"); However, I noticed that using this method the subcategories and articles in a category that is linked on the mainpage are still shown (not the page content of the category though). But because I have some article names and such in the subcategories and the main category name is easily guessed, I wanted to restrict this too. I think that it would be logical that if you restrict access to certain pages, the categories that are restricted don't show their subcategories and articles.

Anyway, I edited includes/Parser.php as follows:

line 482 added: # Don't show subcategories and articles when category not in whitelist if ((!is_array( $wgWhitelistRead ) || (in_array( $name, $wgWhitelistRead) || 0 != $wgUser->getID )))

Before: {			# Don't show subcategories section if there are none. if ( count ( $children ) > 0 ) The End parenthesis ( i.e. } ) on line 605 before return $r

However, the $wgWhilelistRead array is not readable from this file apparently (making it global in this function doesn't help), so I had to copy the line from localsettings.php to above line 482 as stated here. Anyone have any idea how I can include the whitelist array without breaking something or going against mediawiki developer guidelines or something?

Karin van den Berg

Adding a Sysop
Hi! Please help me. My web host installed MediaWiki for me, without creating a sysop. i tried to set the user rights of one of the usernames to 'sysop' according to the instructions on the content page, but without success. What i did was go to phpMyAdmin > the MediaWiki db and then run the SQL UPDATE instruction given on the content page. What did i do wrong or miss out?

Same problem
At home, using the stable version 1.3 of MediaWiki, the initial setup installed a WikiSysop. Here at work, I've installed the 1.4rc1 version. During the initial setup, it did not install a WikiSysop.

On the content page, it gives a script for doing a manual update of the MySQL database. However, that looks like that applies to the database structure of the version 1.3 code. Can we get updated instructions for the version 1.4 database? Thanks!

Just below 1.3 instruction there`s 1.4 one.
You should browse table `user_rights` for `user_id` and place it instead of 1 here: UPDATE user_rights SET ur_rights="bureaucrat,sysop" WHERE ur_user=1;

For Mediawiki 1.5
INSERT INTO user_groups ( ug_user, ug_group ) VALUES ( 1, "bureaucrat" ); INSERT INTO user_groups ( ug_user, ug_group ) VALUES ( 1, "sysop" );

where 1 is your user id viewable under preferences.

It's all greek to me
Hi, I'm fairly good with most things internet but am lost on how to "UPDATE" in the phpMyAdmin user interface. I have access to phpMyAdmin, that's not the issue it's 'What do I do when I get there?' Basically I need someone to hold my hand on this please. I'd like to grant myself "bureaucrat,sysop" rights so I can more effectively manage my wiki but I can't get past this roadblock. TIA

For Mediawiki 1.25 using the MySQL command line
(Note that Mediawiki 1.24+ has the createAndPromote.php command available which does this same thing in a database-agnostic fashion.)

In the example below we assume  is the database name and   is the database prefix.

Enter in the database: mysql -uroot -p

Select the database: use mwiki;

Show the users with their ids: select user_id,user_name from mw_user;

Give your user sysop rights: INSERT INTO mw_user_groups ( ug_user, ug_group ) VALUES ( 1, "sysop" );

where  is the   of the user you want to grant privileges.

Restricting access
Is there a way to restrict the editing privileges of logged in users to one specific article or a collection of articles? I have created a Wiki that has user bio pages and these are the only ones that I want edited by anyone but me.

Controlled registration
My situation is that I would like to run a "knowledge base" for a smallish technical community (say a few thousand folks, internationally) where there are a much smaller set who are well known "experts" (to varying degrees, ranging from "luminary" to "solid contributor") but everyone is capable of contribution. The key thing is that the members of the community know this smaller set and tend to judge the authority of content of the technical articles by the identity of the writer. To that end:


 * Anyone in the world should be able to read.
 * Only registered users should be able to write.

So far so good. This can be accomplished with info above and elsewhere. For this environment to work well, however, users need to have some assurance that author X is actually X. And this need to be done in a way that the sysops don't go crazy. What makes sense to me is that:


 * 1) Users register in the normal way, except that:
 * 2) Real Name is required.
 * 3) email address is required.
 * 4) Email address verification takes place automatically.
 * 5) Once all that has taken place, the sysop(s) get an email with a URL that will allow them to approve/reject the registration.
 * 6) The registrant is sent an email with the results of all this.

Is this possible out of the box, or has anyone done this? It would be great if this were just controlled by options or something. Comments?


 * -- Personally, I would love to have a feature like this!
 * -- I second that sentiment, Having this feature would make what I am trying to impliment(allow users to register, but I must approve them before they can access any data) much easier and streamlined

Error Message
I followed the instructions, editing my LocalSettings.php as described here, and am now getting the following error message when I load my site:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/alleyki/public_html/phanatica/LocalSettings.php:2) in /home/alleyki/public_html/phanatica/includes/OutputPage.php on line 422

- Can anyone tell me how to fix this?


 * Never mind, I found the answer on Google! I had somehow gotten a blank line in at the top of the page. I resaved the file from Notepad, blank line erased, and now it works fine.

I just installed 1.5 and had to use the two insert statements, the Special:MakeSysop page does not exist with my installation? test

Allow discussion while denying edits?
I am setting up a Wiki so that I can keeps notes on stories I'm writing. I have followed instructions so only the Editor group I created is able to edit pages, and general users are not allowed. However turning off Edit for a group also prevents them from discussing the page in question as well.

Is there a way to prevent a group from being able to edit articles, but still add to the discussion pages?

"Talkright extension Davidgaliel 18:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)"

Setting Rights is a Nightmare
I'm new to all things Wiki and I'm finding the most basic tasks really difficult. I just cannot get my head around the whole user rights thing, or I'm doing it all wrong.

I've used the SQL queries to set my user id to bureaucrat and sysop but I still can't edit the navigation sidebar. I run into the same message every time - the page is locked. If I'm a sysop and / or bureaucrat shouldn't I be able to unlock and edit it? And if the answer to that is "yes", then how do I unlock it?


 * If you have permission to edit a page, you don't need to 'unlock' it. You're simply able to edit it (there might be a warning above the edit box that it's a protected page, but that's it).
 * Are you logged in when you try to edit it?
 * Have you changed the user rights settings in LocalSettings.php?
 * --pfctdayelise 15:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I want to set recent changes to show everything by a bot account by default--where do I add "&hidebots=0"? Does it go in LocalSettings.php? 169.237.121.29 20:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

User rights levels section out of date?
The text says that developer "will be removed from future versions of the software". In the mediawiki that I'm using, there isn't a developer user. Is this something that needs to be put into the past tense, or is it still mentioned here because the software wikimedia sites use is slightly different to the mediawiki that average people use? AGrimm 22:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, the text about who can and can't remove special rights is different to what I'm experiencing with my mediawiki. AGrimm 22:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

No “Special:Userrights” or “Special:Makesysop”
Hi,

I just installed MediaWiki 1.9.3 and I can't find any “Special:Userrights” or “Special:Makesysop”. How can I change right? (I want the WikiSysop account to be used as few as possible)? Thank you Vrykolaka (✒ | @) — www 08:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

XFEED Breaks $wgWhitelistRead ?
Hi  I'm running MediaWiki 1.6.10 and recently added the Xfeed extension to add rss updates to my Main Page This is what I have in Localsettings.php:  $wgWhitelistRead = array( "Main Page", "IP Addresses", "Special:Userlogin", "MediaWiki:Monobook.css", "-" ); 

If I add the xfeed code block to the Main Page   http://myserver/wordpress/wp-rss2.php 

I can view the RSS updates, but only when I'm logged into the wiki. Anonymous reads to the Main Page breaks unless I remove this code...

Am I missing something? pls help

I'm the original author of XFeeds, and I can assure it a pretty simple extension. Is it possible that extensions need to be added tot he white list as well? 72.136.192.138 05:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Rights for Unregistered Users (moved from top)
Ok so far - but how do I set the rights for unregistered users. I do not want unregistered users to edit pages. Does sb know how?

For MediaWiki 1.5: Add the following line to LocalSettings.php $wgGroupPermissions['*'   ]['edit']            = false; and have a look at Preventing_Access for further info if you want to do anything more advanced.

For MediaWiki 1.4 you can do the following:

Edit LocalSettings.php and look for the lines. You can add them if they are not already there. To only allow logged in edits change them to $wgWhitelistEdit = true; $wgWhitelistRead = false; $wgWhitelistAccount = array ( "user" => 1, "sysop" => 1, "developer" => 1 );
 * 1) $wgWhitelistEdit = false;
 * 2) $wgWhitelistRead = false;
 * 3) $wgWhitelistAccount = array ( "user" => 1, "sysop" => 1, "developer" => 1 );

That should work but I've never tried it myself.

This is not really in the wiki spirit ;-) - Tobin Richard

But neither is wikispam for google rankings :(

Thank you a lot! Yeah you're right, but my wiki will be used in a school... there are many people who would just love to see our school-wiki project collapsing.

Not everyone has the same use for wikis. I rather have a closed wiki than coding HTML files and sending to a mailing list.