Ability to get list of roles

[Niro]

Hello, I'm working on writing simple forum system and got issue with roles. The forum has to has ability to edit existing roles and setup new ones. I looked up through source code and didn't find any function or storage of roles list. It seems to roles are storing only in backend.

acl.getRoles(function(err, roles){
...
})

Sorry for my English

[ErikvdVen]

Same question over here, would be a nice feature!

EDIT:

I think this should fix it in the mongob-backend.js:

Changing this:

/**
     Gets the contents at the bucket's key.
  */
  get : function(bucket, key, cb){
    contract(arguments)
        .params('string', 'string|number', 'function')
        .end();
    key = encodeText(key);
    var searchParams = (this.useSingle? {_bucketname: bucket, key:key} : {key:key});
    var collName = (this.useSingle? aclCollectionName : bucket);

    this.db.collection(this.prefix + collName,function(err,collection){
      if(err instanceof Error) return cb(err);
      // Excluding bucket field from search result
      collection.findOne(searchParams, {_bucketname: 0},function(err, doc){
        if(err) return cb(err);
        if(! _.isObject(doc) ) return cb(undefined,[]);
        doc = fixKeys(doc);
        cb(undefined,_.without(_.keys(doc),"key","_id"));
      });
    });
  },

To this:

/**
     Gets the contents at the bucket's key.
  */
  get : function(bucket, key, cb){
    contract(arguments)
        .params('string', 'string|number', 'function')
        .end();

    if(key){
      key = encodeText(key);
      var searchParams = (this.useSingle? {_bucketname: bucket, key:key} : {key:key});
      var collName = (this.useSingle? aclCollectionName : bucket);
    }else{
      var searchParams = (this.useSingle? {_bucketname: bucket} : {});
      var collName = (this.useSingle? aclCollectionName : bucket);
    }

    this.db.collection(this.prefix + collName,function(err,collection){
      if(err instanceof Error) return cb(err);
      // Excluding bucket field from search result
      collection.findOne(searchParams, {_bucketname: 0},function(err, doc){
        if(err) return cb(err);
        if(! _.isObject(doc) ) return cb(undefined,[]);
        doc = fixKeys(doc);
        cb(undefined,_.without(_.keys(doc),"key","_id"));
      });
    });
  },

So the key property is optional. If the key property is empty, it just returns everything.

[jonmassot]

IMO, I don't think it was expected to work like that. Since all the users data is not to be kept into ACL database, roles should be the same. You can always write a plugin over node-acl that implement that kind of functionality.

[ErikvdVen]

I understand. What you are saying is that users and roles should be saved in a different collection? Like, for example, we already have a users collection which contains all users, and ACL is using those ID's to link them to specific roles and permissions. And roles should be the same thing, that's what you are saying? Cause that does definitely make sense.

[jonmassot]

@ErikvdVen Yes, that's what I'm saying. I pretty much understand the use case, I'm just arguing as to why you want to have roles (without users) in the acl database that should be more like a collection of authorization and not a collection of roles and authorization.

[ErikvdVen]

Alright! Thanks for thinking along! We just started creating a separated collection with all roles :+1:

[jonmassot]

Cool. Glad I could be of any help!

[trainerbill]

I just ran into this issue. say I am creating an admin section that defines role permissions. I need to be able to list all the roles in the acl_roles collection. Currently that is not possible without queying the collection independently... which means I will probably need a mongoose schema. Not sure why there is not basic CRUD functionality on this module.

[anandka]

Hey trainerbill any updates of how to do it without mongoose schema?

[deksden]

@trainerbill : You can use roles same as users: just ids of them, not whole objects.

Store Roles, Users outside of ACL storage, and use ACL only for defining relationships between permissions/roles/users.