WCMS Host Permissions (WCMS Part 8)

So far in our series on the WCMS (Webcrossing Customization Management Suite), we've covered Themes, Components, Extensions, User and Folder Items, the Localization Manager, and the Developer Tools. In this, the final installment, we'll discuss how you can control whether non-sysops have access to the WCMS.

At the very bottom of the suite of WCMS tools and menus is a link which says "WCMS Host Permissions."

That link leads to a page that looks like this:

First, decide whether you want to let your Host users access the WCMS. Many site owners feel that letting Hosts into the WCMS is asking for trouble. Other sites may have a situation where there are one or more very knowledgeable Hosts that can be trusted with WCMS settings.

If you don't want any of your Hosts to use the WCMS, check the box and fill in none into the blank asking for the group name. Submit the form, and you're done.

If you want all of your Hosts to be able to use the WCMS, DEcheck the box and submit the form, and you're done too.

However, you can also allow just some of your Hosts to use the WCMS. This is how to set that up: If you check the box, the system will use a user group to control Host access to the WCMS tools. So the first thing you'll need to do is create a user group manually the normal way, being sure to set an access list on the user group to disallow Hosts from editing it (adding or removing themselves or others from the group). Once you've done that, come back here and fill in the name of your user group.

Then, decide if it's simpler to have a list of people you want to exclude from the WCMS functions, or to exclude everybody except a few people you want to allow to use the WCMS functions. Set the radio button appropriately.

Voila. Only the Hosts in your user group (or all hosts except the Hosts in your user group) will have access to the WCMS.

It's worth remembering that none of these settings have a thing to do with either sysop or superhosts. Sysop and superhosts can always do everything, everywhere. So this only applies to Host users as defined in an access list. Furthermore, since Hosts can't enter the Control Panel, this only applies to folder-level WCMS pages.

You can apply your host permission settings sitewide, or if you need even more granular control, you can apply them in any folder, using a form almost identical to that above.

And that completes our tour of the WCMS. I hope you've enjoyed getting a taste of what's available under the hood of Webcrossing - most of it not requiring scripting at all!