Adding Web Space Access for Multiple Authors

In many cases, multiple people are editing pages in a particular group web space. LUIR recommends that, instead of sharing the account and password, the additional authors be allowed access to the webspace using an ACL (access control list).

This has three advantages:

1. The authors can use their own userids and passwords to edit, upload or publish to the web pages, instead of having to remember another id and password.
2. The authors can be given access to specific parts of the account, not to the entire AFS account (including email and any other privileges).
3. The last author to edit/upload a given page can be determined (by going into the webspace at a unix prompt and entering ls -la).

There are three parts to the process of using an ACL to add access:

1. Create a 'group' for the authors in the account to which access will be given.
2. Add the authors' userids to the group.
3. Give the group access to the appropriate directories.

Creating the Group

To create the group, log on with the userid of the account in which the webspace lives. You can do this on an AFS workstation, the Compute Servers, or the Network Server. If you log in via the Network Server, type shell to get to an AIX prompt, then webspace to get to the web space. If you log in via the Compute server, cd to /ahome/userid/public/www-data/ to get to the web space.

Enter:

pts creategroup account:groupname

where account is the userid of the account you are in, and groupname is the name of the group you want to create. account:groupname is now the group.

Example: to create a group for the officers of an organization, whose web page is in the account inaaa, one would log in as inaaa, and enter pts creategroup inaaa:officers.

If you make a mistake, you can delete the group by entering:
pts delete account:groupname
or rename the group by entering:
pts rename account:groupname

Adding the Users

Have on hand the userids of the authors you wish to put into the group. You can add more users at any time, or delete them, but you must be in the account (as above) to do it.

For each author, enter:

pts adduser userid account:groupname

where userid is the author's userid and account:groupname is the userid for the account you created the group in, and the name you gave the group.

To remove a user, enter:
pts removeuser userid account:groupname

Repeat for all authors.

To check who is in a particular group, enter:
pts membership account:groupname

Giving Access to the Directories

To give access to the webspace or specific subdirectories, enter:

fs sa directory account:groupname write

where directory is the path to the directory you want the give access to. (write is an alias for rlidwk-- read, list, insert, write, create, etc.)

Note: directory rights are inherited when directories are created, but not when new rights are added. So, if you set the rights on a directory, all the subdirectories created AFTER that will have the same rights, but you will have to set the rights on pre-existing subdirectories individually.

To find out what groups have rights in a directory, enter:

fs la directory

To remove the authors in the group from having access to a specific subdirectory that they currently have rights to, enter:

fs sa directory account:groupname none

Using the Access

Once the rights are set, any author in the group can ftp or publish (with Netscape) to those directories, logging in as themselves. They can also change directories and edit directly in those directories, using
cd /ahome/account/public/www-data/directory

Symbolic links

Each author may want to set up a symbolic link for him/herself in their own Network Server account to the web space. To do this, they should:

1. Log into their Network Server account.
2. Enter shell to get to the AIX prompt.
3. Enter:
   ln -s /afs/cc.lehigh.edu/home/account/public/www-data groupspace
   Where account is the userid of the group account (the one you gave them access to with the ACL) and groupspace is the directory name they want to use to access the space.
4. They should geAt back a $ prompt with no other response.
5. Enter exit to get back to the Network Server menus.