Renaming Site url/shortname causes Authority Not Found error

[cybertoast]

When creating a site in /share and renaming it in /alfresco there's an inconsistency introduced in the site's group. For example, if a site is created in Share as SiteA, alfresco creates a user group called SiteA which has implicit site-manager roles. If the site is then renamed to SiteB from /alfresco's management interface, the group remains the same, but the site's URL changes. But when retrieving sites using the API call remote.call('api/sites'), I get the error:

org.alfresco.repo.security.authority.UnknownAuthorityException: 01010007 An authority was not found for GROUP_site_siteb_SiteManager
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But I don't seem to have a way to rename the URL through /share API.

Steps to reproduce:
* Create a new Public site in /share - Title = Site A, URL = SiteA
* Go to /alfresco as admin (or site creator)
* Change the "Name" value of the site (Company Home -> Sites -> SiteA -> Modify) to SiteB
* Create a dashlet in /share that retrieves a list of all public sites:

result = remote.call('/api/sites?');
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* Result will contain the exception message above.

Is there an API call to both rename a site's short-name and set the appropriate internal Groups? Or is there a way to rename the group in /alfresco so that I can avoid this problem? Or am I just going about this the wrong way?

[joe_l3]

Hi all,

the same error using CIFS  :!:
Here my JIRA comment (http://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-1522) :

I found the same error on my stacktrace renaming site via CIFS (Alfresco 3.3 Community).

Steps to Reproduce:
* Log into Share as any user
* Create new Site, with Title = New Site, URL = newsite, PUBLIC
* Log in to alfresco CIFS as admin
* Go to Sites folder
* Rename folder "newsite" to "newersite"
* Log into Share as admin and
* Go to "search sites" form and click search button

java backtrace for programmers:
———-
……….
Caused by: org.alfresco.repo.security.authority.UnknownAuthorityException: 07050041 An authority was not found for GROUP_site_newersite_SiteManager
at org.alfresco.repo.security.authority.AuthorityDAOImpl.getContainedAuthorities(AuthorityDAOImpl.java:412)

Any news?

[mrogers]

No news - you still cannot change the site shortname.

There's an open enhancement request.

The enhancement request has zero votes at the moment.

[sankatha]

I'm guessing it's you who has just raised this in JIRA as a "critical" bug: http://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALFCOM-3800

I'll paste my response here:

Renaming a Site is -as you've discovered- unsupported currently. You can rename the Site's name and description through the Share UI, but not the URL.

More importantly, modifying ANY Site parameter via the Explorer ("/alfresco") web client is very risky and can cause all sorts of problems; which is why we present the yellow warning banner across that client when browsing within the Sites space or subspaces.

Having said that, you could probably programatically rename the existing Site groups if you did want to rename a Site's shortName, however we really wouldn't recommend this.

Whether you *should* be able to change a Site's url is debatable: all existing links to content within that site (whether on an external system or simply bookmarked by your users) will break. If you really must be able to change the URLs frequently, I'd suggest proxying Share's Tomcat server with an Apache server; that way you can introduce rewrite rules to modify the URL as you wish without having to worry about any other factors.

Thanks,
Mike

Same thing happens when you try to add a new role to sitePermissionDefinitions.xml for an existing site

[mrogers]

site rename is not supported.

[sankatha]

Hi mrogers

I get the same error when I create some custom roles on existing sites via sitePermissionDefinitions.xml. I know it may not related to the same issue which was discussed here but thought worth raising it up.

Every time this happens I have to delete the whole site and re-import my data and it all works fine after that. About to report it as a bug because I cant find any relevant information regarding this. Any thoughts of yours will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[mrogers]

There's a crude but effective fix working its way through the pipeline to prevent rename of the site through CIFS / Explorer etc.

Please raise your new issue in JIRA with as much details as possible  (That means more than you posted here!)

[kamielvdz]

Hi mrogers

I get the same error when I create some custom roles on existing sites via sitePermissionDefinitions.xml. I know it may not related to the same issue which was discussed here but thought worth raising it up.

Every time this happens I have to delete the whole site and re-import my data and it all works fine after that. About to report it as a bug because I cant find any relevant information regarding this. Any thoughts of yours will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I had the same problem. The cause is similar and related to the above problem.

Upon site creation a number of group Authorities are created that are used for this site. E.g. GROUP_site_mynewsite_SiteCustomManager.

If you add a new permissionGroup in sitePermissionDefinitions.xml this authority does not get created automatically and the errors start appearing everywhere. So either you try and add this authority yourself in some way or you have to recreate your site like you suggested.

I hope the next version will be able to create these authorities 'on the fly'.

[mrogers]

There will be no changes unless they are logged in JIRA.   Please make sure your issue is in JIRA, or even better contribute an enhancement.

[kamielvdz]

There will be no changes unless they are logged in JIRA.   Please make sure your issue is in JIRA, or even better contribute an enhancement.

Ok, added to JIRA with possible enhancement. New to alfresco so not comming change unless validated/checked.

[mvanle]

When I want to rename a site's URL (shortname), I do the following workaround:

1. In Alfresco Share, create a new site with the desired URL name
2. Delete all subfolders in the new site
3. Click on "Repository", and navigate to Repository->Sites-><Old URL>
4. Click the "Select" drop down box, and select "All" to select all folders
5. Click on "Selected items …" and select "Copy to …"
6. Select the new site's folder (ie. URL (shortname)) and click "Copy"

You will need to reconfigure your dashboards.

Not sure if the above workaround will work for large complex sites.