This page last changed on Apr 19, 2007 by rosie@atlassian.com.
Open or closed? It's your call.

Confluence gives you the choice to make the site as open or as closed as you wish.

As a tool for communication and collaboration, Confluence is best used the more users you have participating on the site.

So it's advisable to design a security system that doesn't restrict users unless you can think of a very good reason for doing so. Because Confluence tracks histories of changes, it is easy to see who has changed what, and to reverse any edits if required.


There are three levels of permissions in Confluence.

Global permissions

Global permissions are site-level permissions.

This topic is covered in the Site Administrator's Guide.

The permission to create a new space or to administrate one is granted by a site administrator from the global Administration Console.

  • 'Attach Files to User Profile': Users with this permission can attach a picture to their user profile.
  • 'Personal Space': Users with this permission can create a personal space within a Confluence site.
  • 'Create Space(s)': Users with this permission can create new global spaces within a Confluence site. When a space is created, the creator automatically has the 'Administrate Space' permission for that space.
  • 'Administer Confluence': Users with this permission can perform functions relating to the management of Confluence, including Administration of spaces.

Space permissions

Every space has its own, independent set of permissions. These permissions determine the access settings for different users of the space.

In order to assign these permissions, a user must be a space administrator (i.e. must have the 'Administer Space' permission) for that space.

See Users and Groups to learn how these permissions are assigned.


Page restrictions

You can further set page-level restrictions, if you have 'Restrict Pages' permission.

Page restrictions allow you to control who can view or edit individual pages. Page restrictions are set when editing a page from menus below the text-entry box.


How do space permissions and page restrictions work together?

Example: In the HR (Human Resources) space, everyone in the organisation has the 'View' space permission, but only the HR team has the 'Create' space permission (i.e. the ability to create and edit pages in the space). A member of the HR team starts to create a new page called 'Annual Leave Policy'. Because the page is not yet finished, she sets the page's 'Viewing' restriction so that only the HR team can view the page. When the page is finished, she will remove the 'Viewing' restriction so that everyone in the company can see the page.

Warning
If you misconfigure a space so that nobody has access to administer it any more, you will need to have someone in the confluence-administrators group fix the permissions for you.


RELATED TOPICS

Users and Groups
Viewing Space Permissions
Assigning Space Permissions
Page Restrictions

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Document generated by Confluence on May 01, 2007 02:35