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Group Authority

The Group Authority properties govern the role's access to newsgroups. Up to four newsgroup name patterns can be controlled for a single role. However, wildcard characters can be used in the newsgroup names to match all names that fit a certain pattern. The '*' character matches any series of letters, digits, and periods. The '?' character matches any single letter, digit, or period.

Beside the newsgroup name field is a drop down list of possible Access Levels. The Access Level controls the type of access allowed to the newsgroups whose names match the pattern to its left.

For example, the definition of PostPrivate uses ``private.*'' in the name field and ``Read, post, cancel'' in the Access Level field. This allows users assigned to the PostPrivate role to read, post, and cancel messages in any newsgroups whose names starts with ``private.'' (e.g. private.discuss would match but public.discuss would not).

As another example, the definition of ReadPublic uses ``public.*'' in the name field and ``Read only'' in the Access Level field. This allows users assigned to the ReadPublic role to read (but not post or cancel) messages in any newsgroups whose names starts with ``public.'' (e.g. public.discuss would match but private.discuss would not).

Finally, suppose that an administrator wants to create special newsgroups to contain announcements from his company. He wants customers to be able read these newsgroups but does not want them to be able to post their own messages to them.

The administrator would first create a new role named Announcer and set that role's properties as follows:

  • Set the RoleName to Announcer
  • Set the Admin Level to No administrative authority
  • Set the Name field in the first line of Group Authority to *.announce and the corresponding Access Level to Read, post, cancel, modify.
  • Set the Name field in the second line of Group Authority to public.* and the corresponding Access Level to Read, post, cancel, modify.

Next the administrator would create a new role named newdefault to replace the server's default role and set newdefault's properties as follows:

  • Set the Role Name to newdefault
  • Set the Admin Level to No administrative authority
  • Set the Name field in the first line of Group Authority to public.*.announce and the corresponding Access Level to Read only
  • Set the Name field in the second line of Group Authority to public.* and the corresponding Access Level to Read, post, cancel

The administrator would then select the default user and change its role from default to newdefault. Finally, the administrator would create a new user named Announcer and assign it to the Announcer role. Now the default user can post to any groups whose names start with ``public.'' except for groups whose names end with ``.announce'' which can only be read.


next up previous contents
Next: Role Membership Authority Up: Creating, Deleting, and Changing Previous: Basic Role Information   Contents
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