phpBB Crib Notes

Permissions

Some concepts and categories related to phpBB permissions are somewhat confusingly named and discussed in phpBB documentation. Some terms, such as 'user' are applied to multiple things.

Key concepts

Permission 

A setting that determines whether a user can use a feature.

Role 

A collection of permission values that are grouped for ease of reuse.

Group 

A set of users.

The best practice is to use pre-defined or custom roles, and assign them to groups; then add users to groups to give them permissions determined by roles. Assigning permissions to users individually quickly becomes a maintenance nightmare.

Permissions are divided into several categories, depending on their scope and their nature.

Global permissions 

are either unrelated to forums or apply to all forums.

Forum permissions 

apply to specific forums.

Users' permissions 

have to do with usage of the site or a forum.

Moderator permissions 

have to do with moderation of the site or a forum.

Administrator permissions 

have to do with administration of the site.

There are also User, Moderator, and Admin roles, which are varying sets of usage, moderation, and administration permissions. They are available to apply when you are working with the corresponding category of permissions.

And there are pre-defined groups with names like "Administrators", "Global moderators" and "Registered users". These groups are appropriate for assigning the corresponding roles.

If you don't assign a particular role-type, a user or group has no permissions allowed for that category of permissions. For example the group "Registered users" has no admin role assigned, and therefore has no administrative permissions.

Permission-Related Pages in the ACP

The following pages in the phpBB Administration Control Panel let you change permission settings:

Users and Groups Tab

Users' permissions 

Select a user and then set or remove global-usage, global-moderation, and global-admin permissions for that user. Avoid using this page if possible.

Users' forum permission 

Select a user and one or more forums, and then set forum-usage and forum-moderation permissions for that user. Avoid using this page if possible.

Groups' permissions 

Select a group, and then set global-usage, global-moderation, and global-admin permissions for that group.

Groups' forum permission 

Select a group, and then set forum-usage and forum-moderation permissions for that group.

Permissions Tab

Users' permissions 

Select a user and then set global-usage, global-moderation, and global-admin permissions for that user. Avoid using this page if possible.

Groups' permissions 

Select a group, and then set global-usage, global-moderation, and global-admin permissions for that group.

Administrators 

Select either user(s) or group(s) and then set global-admin permissions for the selected item. Use only with groups.

Global moderators 

Select either user(s) or group(s) and then set global-moderation permissions for the selected item. Use only with groups.

Forum permissions 

Select one or more forums, then user(s) or group(s), and then set forum-usage permissions. Use only with groups.

Copy forum permissions 

Select a forum to copy permissions from and one or more forums to copy permissions to.

Forum moderators 

Select one or more forums, then user(s) or group(s), and then forum-moderation permissions. Use only with groups.

Users' forum permission 

Select a user and one or more forums, and then set forum-usage and forum-moderation permissions for that user. Avoid using this page if possible.

Groups' forum permission 

Select a group, and then set forum-usage and forum-moderation permissions for that group.