How to set up rights for public wikis

Written by

Oana Elena Florea

, Customer Support Manager

As the digital world continues to evolve, wikis have become a popular way to collaborate, share knowledge, and create online communities. However, with the increasing need for transparency and accessibility, it's equally important to safeguard the privacy of certain pages or information.

In this article, you will learn step-by-step how to configure the rights settings on your wiki to create a public space (e.g. for sharing product documentation online), while also preserving the privacy of confidential information of other pages from your wiki.

•  Step-by-step rights set up for the wiki
  • Step 1: Global Administration
  • Step 2: Specific pages
  • Step 3: Space containing the documentation
  • Step 4: Color Theme
  • Step 5: Navigation Panel
  • Step 6: Document Tree and Document Tree Macros

 Step-by-step rights set up for the wiki

Let's take an example that you can replicate afterward:

• Functionally, in this example, the wiki will include a public space (in our example "MyDocumentation") with published content available to the guest users:

• We also want to make sure all other access to the wiki is protected by login as it may contain sensitive data, content that awaits review, future ideas, etc:

Step 1: Global Administration

Why we need to update the rights: in order to block the guest users globally on any other content except for the documentation space.

Steps to follow:

•  Go to Administer wiki > User & Rights > Rights 
• Add the following setup for groups:

  

• And guest setup:

  

Step 2: Specific pages

Enable hidden pages to have access to some specific documents (normally hidden for simple users):

Step 3: Space containing the documentation

Why we need to update the rights: open the documentation space for the guest while not blocking the rest of the users.

Steps to follow:

• The space in this example is MyDocumentation accessed with the URL http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/MyDocumentation/.
• Go to the documentation space > Administer Pages > Rights: Pages & Children
• Add rights for XWikiAllGroup:

  

• Add rights for guests: 

  

Step 4: Color Theme

Why we need to update the rights: display the logo and color theme for the guests while not blocking the rest of the users.

Steps to follow:

• Open the color theme page, e.g. http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/FlamingoThemes/Iceberg
• Go to Edit > Access rights
• Add rights for XWikiAllGroup:

  

• Add rights for guests:

  

Step 5: Navigation Panel

Why we need to update the rights: display the navigation panel on the documentation space for the guests while not blocking the rest of the users.

Steps to follow:

• Open the Navigation document: http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Panels/Navigation
• Click on Edit > Access Rights
• Click to Force Editing
• Add rights for XWikiAllGroup:

  

• Add rights for guests:

  

Step 6: Document Tree and Document Tree Macros

Why we need to update the rights: display the document tree (used on the Navigation Panel) for the guests while not blocking the rest of the users.

Steps to follow:

• Open the "Document Tree" page, e.g http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/DocumentTree
• Click on Edit > Access Rights
• Click to Force Editing
• Add rights for XWikiAllGroup:

  

• Add rights for guests:

  

• Repeat the steps for the page "Document Tree Macros", e.g. http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/DocumentTreeMacros