What permissions allow sharing Public Links?

[ustamills]

Hello,

When trying to "share" a public link inside Community 4.2.e I sometimes can and sometimes can't.  I strongly suspect it has to do with permissions but I don't know which permissions.  The Alfresco documentation doesn't state what permissions allow that feature.

Could someone enlighten me please?

Drew

[ddraper]

If you share a link to a document-details page then whoever attempts to open that link needs to have read permissions on that document… however, it is possible to publicly share a document using the Quick Share option which will provide a completely public link to the document.

[ustamills]

Thank you for the comment.  However my question is not about permissions for reading a publicly shared document.  What I want to know is about permissions for actually clicking that "Share" button.  I want to know who can do the sharing, what permissions control the act of initially sharing a document.  I understand that once a document is publicly shared it can be read by everyone.

[ddraper]

Using the Quick Share link I believe you just need to be a consumer of the site (assuming the document is in a site)… NOT a collaborator as stated in another post. The reason for this is that a consumer could very easily download and post or e-mail the content so their is no reason why they can't be allowed to simply perform the quick share operation. If you are not seeing the option to quick share then it could be that you are viewing the document as a non-site member or you could be viewing in another context (e.g. via the repository document library page rather than via a site document library page)… if you could provide more detailed explanation of the scenarios where you can't perform the quick share then that would be useful.

[ustamills]

Thank you for the response.  If what you say is true, then I do see a problem with that.  Being a consumer still requires permissions to access the site.  Reading a public link does not.  I believe that there SHOULD be restrictions of some sort otherwise it creates a security hole.

Where all this questioning is leading to is that I hope there is some mechanism whereby I can set even tighter restrictions on who can click the "Share" button.  I don't want just anyone putting a document out in the public eye.  I believe the owner would have a much stronger vested interest in properly managing public access than a consumer would.

I hope this is the case.  Therefore I'm not worried that there are times when I can't create the link.  I WANT for there to be times when I (or anyone else) cannot create the link.

[ddraper]

If you grant a user  consumer access to a document, you cannot prevent them from downloading and sharing the a document however they choose. You can restrict access to sites (by making public sites moderated or making a site completely private) but you cannot control what the users that you invite to that site do with the content. You can prevent them modifying the version and content within Alfresco but not externally. The only way to close the security hole you describe is to completely disable the quick share feature AND the ability to download the document.

[ustamills]

I suppose I'm not being obvious enough.  I want to control who can click that Share button.  That is all I'm trying to do.

Neither I, nor anyone else can control what people do with downloaded content.  But when it comes to controlling the access to the Alfresco document, I think my desire is reasonable.

[deepak1987]

I tried on Alfresco 4.2.e Community Edition where ONLY Owner of the document, Collaborator, and Manager of the Site can click on "Share" button.

Try it yourself to get better understanding…  

[ddraper]

Then you'll need to write a customisation.

[deepak1987]

The user should be the owner of a document or should be Collaborator of a site.