Users and Roles

This document provides an overview of user roles and the permission management system in Poweradmin.

Basics of User Management

Poweradmin implements a permission-based user management system with two primary user levels:

1. Uberusers - Users that can do anything within the interface (administrators)
2. Limited users - Users with restricted permissions based on assigned templates

From version 4.5.0 the user list carries a filter box that matches on username, full name, email address and description. The term is kept as you page through the results, and the count in the page heading reflects the filtered total rather than every user. Users who lack user_view_others only ever see their own account, filtered or not.

Permission Templates

Permission templates were introduced in version 2.0.0 and are built from a set of individual permissions. Each permission allows users to perform specific actions, such as viewing zone contents, editing zones, or creating supermasters. By adding or removing permissions to a template and assigning that template to users, you can control user access rights.

Understanding Uberuser Status

The user_is_ueberuser permission overrules any other permission the user may or may not have been assigned. It grants full access to all features that would otherwise require specific permissions. This is typically reserved for administrators.

Zone Ownership

Ownership is a designation that marks users as "owners" for specific zones. However, ownership alone doesn't grant any privileges for these zones. The actual abilities are determined by the permissions in the user's assigned template. For example, if a user owns zones but lacks the zone_content_view_own permission, they won't be able to see those zones.

Edit Access and Zone Integrity

Poweradmin assumes that users with edit permissions for a zone can be trusted with full access to that zone's contents, because even partial edit access would allow a user to break the zone's functionality.

Deleting a zone is separate. Since version 4.1.0 it has its own permissions, zone_delete_own and zone_delete_others, checked independently of the edit permissions. A user who can edit a zone cannot delete it unless one of those is granted as well.

Security Pitfalls

Granting any of these permissions gives a user broad influence over other accounts, so treat them as administrative:

• user_edit_templ_perm
• templ_perm_edit
• user_add_new

They cannot be used to become an administrator. A user who is not already an administrator cannot put user_is_ueberuser into a permission template, cannot edit a template that already carries it, and cannot assign such a template to an account. See Permissions for the details.

Anyone with root shell access to the server running Poweradmin, or to the PowerDNS database server, effectively has uberuser rights regardless of the permission system.

Additional Information

When configuring user permissions, keep the principle of least privilege in mind - only grant the permissions necessary for a user to perform their required functions.