Best way to implement a user system?

[Recoil_UK]

Hi guys

Just wondering what everyones thoughts are, on implementing a user system for websites.

The system has to allow for admins, these are allowed to do anything, through a selection of special users, down to ordinary users that can only do certain things.

But each user has to be allowed to join more than one group.

How would you accomplish this? more interested in the database schema than anything.

Thx guys, look forward to your responses.

L8rs

[Recoil_UK]

Anybody?

[siwis]

The initial method I would use is to have a field in the users db called "user_priv" which carries an integer value.

Site User = user_priv 1 (Basic priveledges)
Site Special User = user_priv 2 (Advanced priveledges)
Site Admin = user_priv 3 (Full priveledges)

Then within each section of the script that has variable access rights you simply check for the value of user priv.

Use a comparator to check against minimum priv requirements, ie

if (user_priv >= 2) {
    //do this
];

would only "do this" if the user is a site special user OR a site admin

if (user_priv >= 3) {
    //do this
];

would only "do this" if the user is a site admin

[planetsim]

I tend to use the vB style which is usergroups

Each group has functions which they can and cant do.. so eg

canviewadmin, canpostpm etc.

Doing it this way will get rid of quite a bit of code, as you dont need unnessacary if(blah == 3) etc every to make sure..

You can also set more than 3 groups as well..

[Recoil_UK]

Hi

Thanks for the replies.

Ok, so far there would be a user_group field the users db.
There would also be another table in the database called user_groups, with the following fields...

user_group_id
user_group_name
user_group_description

If I wanted to use moderators in a forum for example, I could setup a group called moderators with an id of 1.

So upon searching the users db, I could find out that a specific user had moderator rights.

I understand the above and I think I could probably code it, but what about allowing a user to be a moderator of 2 forums, or a moderator and an admin.

This is what I,m finding slightly confusing, how would you implement this?

Thx again

[Blob]

I'd have 3 fields in the table:
Special User....Moderator.....Admin

So...
Id=1
Name=Jub Jub
Email=[e-mail]
SU=YES
MOD=NO
ADMIN=NO

[siwis]

From what you are now describing.....

I'd be tempted to remove the access rights from the user table totally and create a new table for it:

Users table

UserID
username
userpw
user....

Areas Table

AreaID
areaname
......

Rights Table

UserID
AreaID
accessrights

A user with no special rights has no entries in this last table, however if that user is a sysadmin for AreaID 1 then his UserID should be stored along with the AreaID and the appropriate intval to denote those rights. This would allow you to specify different levels for different users in different areas.