A weak 'admin' [2.7]

A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Number of replies: 9
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The user 'admin' of a 2.7 site doesn't get the Site-administration menu. Trying https://example.com/admin/ throws "Sorry, but you do not currently have permissions to do that (Change site configuration)" pointing to https://docs.moodle.org/27/en/error/moodle/nopermissions.

I don't know the history of the site, but I have no reason to believe that the owners have tampered with roles and permissions.

I checked the table mdl_user and there is nothing unusual in the record with id=2:
| id | auth   | confirmed | policyagreed | deleted | suspended | mnethostid | username | password ...

|  2 | manual |         1 |            0 |       0 |         0 |          1 | admin    | [gibberish] ...

Am I missing something obvious?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Howard Miller -
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Possibly... they're not an admin. 

As all capability checks for site admin come back true then a capability error is impossible for the site admin.  Find the mdl_config table in the database and search for name='siteadmins'. The value field contains a comma-separated list of the current site admin's user ids. 

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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I thought, that was it! But still missing:
mysql> select * from mdl_config where name="siteadmins";

+----+------------+-------+

| id | name       | value |

+----+------------+-------+

| 19 | siteadmins | 2     |

+----+------------+-------+

So my admin with id=2 is there?

Still something is wrong. I know that there is another systemwide admin. Will check.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Howard Miller -
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There isn't. That's the only place the site admins are defined. Site admins completely skip the role system. The has_capability() and require_capability() calls simply return 'true' if your id is in that list. 

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Howard,

That is more an IRC! Thanks!!

No, I was just too exicted, and logged in to the wrong server!
sad

In the real one, id=2 was indeed missing:
mysql> select * from mdl_config where name="siteadmins";

+----+------------+-------------+

| id | name       | value       |

+----+------------+-------------+

| 19 | siteadmins | 108,102,116 |

+----+------------+-------------+

Ran the update command and got:
| 19 | siteadmins | 2,108,102,116 |

But this admin is still "weak". Even a logout/login didn't help. I am still investigating.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Howard

Here comes a late report. As I wrote earlier, the SQL update didn't help. I returned after the weekend, and it works!

I don't have an explanation other than that some cache has delayed the effect.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Howard Miller -
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If that's what you want to believe... big grin big grin

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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I don't know what to believe. I wish I had taken the subtle path of asking the strong admin to promote the weak admin (in the web GUI). I think, that is what Mary proposed.
smile
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Mary Cooch -
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Hi Visvanath - it's probably beyond my knowledge, but can you at least confirm that this user 'admin' does appear in the list of site admins in yourmoodlesite/admin/roles/admins.php?

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: A weak 'admin' [2.7]

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Mary

That would have been too nice. This weak 'admin' can not kick open anything under mysite/admin/ !
sad

Let me see whether Howard's interrogation would do. Still good to know that you are only minutes away.
wink
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