Configuring Roles

Roles contain permissions for users to manage the server. You can create different roles with various combinations of permissions and assign them to a user or a group of users. Through the Management Console, you can also edit and delete an existing user role.

WSO2 supports the role-based authentication model where privileges of a user are based on the role it is attached with. By default, WSO2 products come with the following roles:

• Admin - Provides full access to all features and controls. By default, the user "admin" is assigned to both the "Admin" and the "Everyone" roles.
• Everyone - Every new user is assigned to this role by default. It does not include any permissions.
• System - This role is not visible in the Management Console.

If a user has several assigned roles, their permissions are added together.

Adding a user role 

Follow the instructions below to add a user role.

1. On the Configure tab in the management console, click Users and Roles.
   
2. Click Roles. This link is only visible to users with the Admin role. 
   
3. Click Add New Role.
4. Do the following:
   
   1. In the Domain list, specify the user store where you want to create this role.
   2. Enter a unique name for this role.
   3. Click Next.
5. Select the permissions you want users with this role to have. Note that when you assign this role to a user, you can override the role's permissions and customize them for the user. 
6. Select the existing users you want to have this role. You can also assign this role to users later, but if you are creating this role in an external user store that does not allow empty roles, you must assign it to at least one user. You can search for a user by name, or view all users by entering * in the search field.
7. Click Finish.

The role is created and is listed on the Roles page. You can now edit the role as needed.  

Editing or deleting a role

If you need to make modifications to a role, select the domain (user store) where the role resides, and then use the links in the Actions column on the Roles screen as follows: 

• Rename the role
• Change the default permissions associated with this role
• Assign this role to users
• View the users who are assigned this role
• Delete the role if you no longer need it

Updating role names

If you need to make modifications to the role names, you need to do one of the following:

Update before the first startup (recommended)

The default role names (admin and everyone) can be changed before starting WSO2 product by editing <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/user-mgt.xml.

<Configuration> 
	<AdminRole>admin</AdminRole> 
	<AdminUser> 
		<UserName>admin</UserName> 
		<Password>admin</Password> 
	</AdminUser> 
	<EveryOneRoleName>everyone</EveryOneRoleName> <!-- By default users in this role sees the registry root --> 
	<Property name="dataSource">jdbc/WSO2CarbonDB</Property> 
	<Property name="MultiTenantRealmConfigBuilder">org.wso2.carbon.user.core.config.multitenancy.SimpleRealmConfigBuilder</Property> 
</Configuration>

The following are the changes that need to be made in the configurations above:

• Change <AdminRole>admin</AdminRole> to <AdminRole>administrator</AdminRole>.
• Change <EveryOneRoleName>everyone</EveryOneRoleName> to <EveryOneRoleName>Your role</EveryOneRoleName>.

Update after the product is used for sometime 

You do not have to do this when updating before the first startup. The following steps guide you through updating the role names:

1. Make the configuration changes indicated in the above section.
2. You need to do the following user store level changes for existing users if you have changed the role names as mentioned earlier. 
   

   • If you are connected to JDBCUserStoreManager you need to update the UM_USER_ROLE table with the existing users after changing the 'admin' and 'everyone' role names. Also if you have changed the permission of 'everyone' role the UM_ROLE_PERMISSION has to be updated with the permissions to the new role.

     The schema can be located by referring to the data source defined in the user-mgt.xml file. The data source definition can be found under repository/conf/datasources/master-datasources.xml.

   • If you are connected to ReadWriteLdapUserStoreManager you need to populate the members of the previous admin role to the new role under the Groups.
3. After the changes restart the server.