librelist archives

Re: [geonode] Anonymous users permissions

From:

Mauricio Miranda

Date:

2011-07-15 @ 20:27

On Jul 15, 2011, at 13:58 PM, David Winslow wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Mauricio Miranda 
<mmiranda@xoomcode.com> wrote:
>> We are trying to understand how GeoNode manages the permissions and 
it's being a little hard.
>> 
>> Right now, we need to know if it's possible to allow an anonymous user 
just to view the data without download capabilities.
>  
> It is technically difficult to support this use case - viewing data and 
downloading data vary only by some formatting details (such as PNG vs. 
Shapefile) and GeoServer doesn't currently allow restricting access by 
format.  I think there is some interest in this feature among the GeoNode 
community, however it is not on the roadmap wiki right now.
> 
> While really restricting downloads would be difficult, a simpler measure
would be to just hide the links - that could be accomplished just by 
modifying the permissions system (to add the new permission level) and the
Django templates.

We found a simple way to solve this, we disabled the WFS service in 
Geoserver so the user is not able to get the data in any vectorial format.

Anyway, in the data advanced search page, if you select one o more layers,
the application allows you to export the data in zip format with a shape 
file inside it.

I don't understand how it is working but It's definitively not using the 
WFS service so I guess it is creating the shape with GeoTools or some 
other tool.

If you tell me how this is actually working may be we can disable the 
functionality.

>  
>> Another thing that results strange is that anybody who enters to the 
site is able to create maps. Is there any reason for this? Can we remove 
this option easily?
> 
> We consider this a feature - letting anonymous users work on maps until 
it is time to save encourages participation without especially burdening 
authenticated users of the site.  There's currently no support for 
disabling this option.  I think it would be somewhat difficult because 
GeoNode's map composer doesn't have a view-only version.  So we'd need a 
full-screen map viewer (or a 'no-editing' mode for the composer) before we
could disable editing for unauthenticated users. 

I understand the idea, I supposed the user was able to save the map but 
now I see it's not possible.

I know GeoNode is using GeoExplorer. We deployed a GeoExplorer standalone 
some time ago and it has a View page for a published map that was read 
only. Does this feature still exist in GeoExplorer? Aren't you able to use
it in GeoNode to allow this "view-only" functionality?

--
Mauricio Miranda
Chief Development Officer
http://www.xoomcode.com

>
> Anyway, in the data advanced search page, if you select one o more layers,
> the application allows you to export the data in zip format with a shape
> file inside it.
>
> I don't understand how it is working but It's definitively not using the
> WFS service so I guess it is creating the shape with GeoTools or some other
> tool.
>
> If you tell me how this is actually working may be we can disable the
> functionality.


This process is done using an GeoServer extension that comes with GeoNode:


https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/tree/master/src/geoserver-geonode-ext/src/main/java/org/geonode/process/batchdownload

called from the Django view here:


https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/master/src/GeoNodePy/geonode/maps/views.py#L377


-- 
Sebastian Benthall
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org

On Jul 19, 2011, at 11:24 AM, Sebastian Benthall wrote:
> 
> Anyway, in the data advanced search page, if you select one o more 
layers, the application allows you to export the data in zip format with a
shape file inside it.
> 
> I don't understand how it is working but It's definitively not using the
WFS service so I guess it is creating the shape with GeoTools or some 
other tool.
> 
> If you tell me how this is actually working may be we can disable the 
functionality.
> 
> This process is done using an GeoServer extension that comes with GeoNode:
> 
> 
https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/tree/master/src/geoserver-geonode-ext/src/main/java/org/geonode/process/batchdownload
> 
> called from the Django view here:
> 
> 
https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/master/src/GeoNodePy/geonode/maps/views.py#L377

Thanks!

--
Mauricio Miranda
Chief Development Officer
http://www.xoomcode.com

>
> I know GeoNode is using GeoExplorer. We deployed a GeoExplorer standalone
> some time ago and it has a View page for a published map that was read only.
> Does this feature still exist in GeoExplorer? Aren't you able to use it in
> GeoNode to allow this "view-only" functionality?


It is not technically correct to say that GeoNode is using GeoExplorer.  It
shares a lot of code with it through the GXP library, but GeoExplorer and
GeoNode's Map Composer are different applications.

-- 
Sebastian Benthall
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org