Managing access to a Drupal Commons site

As-distributed, Drupal Commons is configured to require users to login before they can access the home page or any other content on the site. This is controlled through several easy configuration settings.

Enabling anonymous access to content

In order to configure your site to allow anonymous access to the home page, and other content, do the following (when logged in as the administrative user):

• Disable the forced login by visiting /admin/settings/commons and unselecting the checkbox for "Force users to login"; then scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save configuration";
• Enable access to various content types on your site by visiting /admin/user/permissions and selecting (checking) the checkbox in the anonymous user column on all the content lines you wish.  The most likely ones include (listed from top-of-page to bottom):
  • comment module > access comments
  • heartbeat module > view heartbeat messages
  • node module > access content
  • shoutbox module > view shouts
  • user module > access user profiles
  • userpoints module > view userpoints
• Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click "Save permissions."

Controlling account registration policy

Note that Drupal Commons also provides flexibility on how accounts are created:

• Visit /admin/user/settings and select one of the first three radio buttons in order to control how much administrative involvement is required when users create an account.