Chapter 5: Security - A Brief Introduction

In the previous chapter, we created our first table intended to store business data. In a business application such as Flectra, one of the first questions to consider is who1 can access the data. Flectra provides a security mechanism to allow access to the data for specific groups of users.

The topic of security is covered in more detail in Restrict access to data. This chapter aims to cover the minimum required for our new module.

Data Files (CSV)

Flectra is a highly data driven system. Although behavior is customized using Python code, part of a module’s value is in the data it sets up when loaded. One way to load data is through a CSV file. One example is the list of country states which is loaded at installation of the base module.

"id","country_id:id","name","code"
state_au_1,au,"Australian Capital Territory","ACT"
state_au_2,au,"New South Wales","NSW"
state_au_3,au,"Northern Territory","NT"
state_au_4,au,"Queensland","QLD"
...

  • id is an external identifier. It can be used to refer to the record (without knowing its in-database identifier).

  • country_id:id refers to the country by using its external identifier.

  • name is the name of the state.

  • code is the code of the state.

These three fields are defined in the res.country.state model.

By convention, a file importing data is located in the data folder of a module. When the data is related to security, it is located in the security folder. When the data is related to views and actions (we will cover this later), it is located in the views folder. Additionally, all of these files must be declared in the data list within the __manifest__.py file. Our example file is defined in the manifest of the base module.

Also note that the content of the data files is only loaded when a module is installed or updated.

Warning

The data files are sequentially loaded following their order in the __manifest__.py file. This means that if data A refers to data B, you must make sure that B is loaded before A.

In the case of the country states, you will note that the list of countries is loaded before the list of country states. This is because the states refer to the countries.

Why is all this important for security? Because all the security configuration of a model is loaded through data files, as we’ll see in the next section.

Access Rights

Reference: the documentation related to this topic can be found in Access Rights.

Note

Goal: at the end of this section, the following warning should not appear anymore:

WARNING rd-demo flectra.modules.loading: The models ['estate.property'] have no access rules...

When no access rights are defined on a model, Flectra determines that no users can access the data. It is even notified in the log:

WARNING rd-demo flectra.modules.loading: The models ['estate.property'] have no access rules in module estate, consider adding some, like:
id,name,model_id:id,group_id:id,perm_read,perm_write,perm_create,perm_unlink

Access rights are defined as records of the model ir.model.access. Each access right is associated with a model, a group (or no group for global access) and a set of permissions: create, read, write and unlink2. Such access rights are usually defined in a CSV file named ir.model.access.csv.

Here is an example for our previous test.model:

id,name,model_id/id,group_id/id,perm_read,perm_write,perm_create,perm_unlink
access_test_model,access_test_model,model_test_model,base.group_user,1,0,0,0

  • id is an external identifier.

  • name is the name of the ir.model.access.

  • model_id/id refers to the model which the access right applies to. The standard way to refer to the model is model_<model_name>, where <model_name> is the _name of the model with the . replaced by _. Seems cumbersome? Indeed it is…

  • group_id/id refers to the group which the access right applies to.

  • perm_read,perm_write,perm_create,perm_unlink: read, write, create and unlink permissions

Exercise

Add access rights.

Create the ir.model.access.csv file in the appropriate folder and define it in the __manifest__.py file.

Give the read, write, create and unlink permissions to the group base.group_user.

Tip: the warning message in the log gives you most of the solution ;-)

Restart the server and the warning message should have disappeared!

It’s now time to finally interact with the UI!

1

meaning which Flectra user (or group of users)

‘unlink’ is the equivalent of ‘delete’