Changing the owner of content #

Every content object has an owner, the user it belongs to. Roles can limit what someone may do to their own content (the Owner limitation of content/read, content/edit and content/remove). When someone leaves, or content was created under the wrong account, the owner has to change. The extension ezownerchange (se7enxweb/ezownerchange) does this for one object or for a whole subtree. New installations have it switched on.

At the end of this guide you will have changed the owner of one object and of a subtree from the administration, seen the preview first, and done the same on the command line with --dry-run.

1. In the administration #

1. Open the context menu of a node and choose Change owner. The entry appears for users with the policy owner/change (the Administrator role has it).
2. Choose the new owner in the content browser and click Select. Nothing has changed yet.
3. The preview shows every object the change reaches and the outcome for each. Pick This object only or This object and everything below it (this needs owner/subtree), optionally limit it to the objects of the current owner, and click Update preview.
4. Click Change the owner of N objects. The page shows how many owners changed.

Each object changes only where you may also edit it (content/edit). Every change is recorded in the audit as content.ezownerchange.change.

2. On the command line #

For subtrees bigger than 500 objects, or for scripted handovers, preview first and then run the change. Run it as the web server's user:

php extension/ezownerchange/bin/php/expownerchange.php --to-owner=<new owner id> --node=<node id> --from-owner=<old owner id> --dry-run --list
php extension/ezownerchange/bin/php/expownerchange.php --to-owner=<new owner id> --node=<node id> --from-owner=<old owner id>

The extension's command line guide has every option and real output.

The extension's documentation #

The extension's own guides are in the ezownerchange repository, and in every installation under extension/ezownerchange/doc/:

• Using it in the administration
• The command line script
• Configuration
• Permissions and role setups
• What the audit records
• Upgrading from releases up to 1.3
• Troubleshooting

Related pages #

• Roles, policies and unactivated users
• Security and audit