By Lee Sykes
September 2005
One of the most complex and important elements you need to understand when working with DotNetNuke is setting up the security roles.
This video tutorial covers:
- An explanation of security roles
- An analysis of what security roles we require for a music website & how they will be used
- How security roles work with users
- How to add security roles to your DotNetNuke portal
- Auto assignment of roles, the public roles
- Subscribing to a role (ie. a newsletter subscription) as a registered user
Time length: 6min 48secs
Planning the Security Roles
DotNetNuke uses role based security. This allows you to give access to certain areas of your website, dependant on which security role a user belongs to. Every website has different requirements, so it is wise to plan your requirements before you start adding any content to your website.
As an example, we are going to work through the security roles we require for a music website. Our website consists of several access areas, which will require different security roles to access them.
|
Website Access Area
|
Description
|
Security Role Name
|
|
Visitor
|
Access to all areas of website, except the mp3 downloads area and posting messages in the forum. |
Un-authenticated user |
|
Home Page Text
|
This is to be managed and updated by a member of staff. |
Home Page Administrator |
|
MP3s Downloads
& Forum
|
Access to MP3s. Only available to website members.
To post a message in the forum, you have to be a member of the website. |
Registered Users |
|
Forum Admin
|
The forum posts need to be moderated by a member of staff. |
Forum Administrator |
|
Newsletter
|
We want to allow our users to register with our website to receive a newsletter. |
Newsletter Subscriber |
|
Website Administrator
|
High Security. To manage the entire website content and portal, eg. Skins, adding new modules etc. |
Administrators |
DotNetNuke gives us very flexible options for configuring the areas of our website:
- Each user of your website is assigned to a security role
- A user can be assigned to several security roles at the same time
- A security role can have several users assigned to it
Note: The following roles come installed as default with your DotNetNuke portal
- Administrators
- Registered Users
- Subscribers
Now that we have decided what security roles we require, we need to add them to our website, this alone will not secure the website however.
We need to:
- Create the security roles
- Assign the security roles to the users of our website
- Assign the security roles to the pages and modules, setting which roles have access to a page or module
Video
Follow the video tutorial to add the security roles to your website.
Where next?
Once you have added the Security Roles to your DotNetNuke portal, follow this tutorial covering: Assigning a Security Role to a User Account