Privileges

Introduction

Privileges allow server owners to grant or revoke the right to do certain actions.

• When should a priv be used?
• Checking for privileges
• Getting and Setting

When should a priv be used?

A privilege should give a player the right to do something. They are not for indicating class or status.

The main admin of a server (the name set by the name setting) has all privileges given to them.

Good:

• interact
• shout
• noclip
• fly
• kick
• ban
• vote
• worldedit
• area_admin - admin functions of one mod is ok

Bad:

• moderator
• admin
• elf
• dwarf

Declaring a privilege

minetest.register_privilege("vote", {
	description = "Can vote on issues",
	give_to_singleplayer = true
})

If give_to_singleplayer is true, then you can remove it as that’s the default value when not specified:

minetest.register_privilege("vote", {
	description = "Can vote on issues"
})

Checking for privileges

There is a quicker way of checking that a player has all the required privileges:

local has, missing = minetest.check_player_privs(player_or_name,  {
	interact = true,
	vote = true })

has is true if the player has all the privileges needed.
If has is false, then missing will contain a dictionary of missing privileges^{[checking needed]}.

if minetest.check_player_privs(name, {interact=true, vote=true}) then
	print("Player has all privs!")
else
	print("Player is missing some privs!")
end

local has, missing = minetest.check_player_privs(name, {
	interact = true,
	vote = true })
if has then
	print("Player has all privs!")
else
	print("Player is missing privs: " .. dump(missing))
end

Getting and Setting

You can get a table containing a player’s privileges using minetest.get_player_privs:

local privs = minetest.get_player_privs(name)
print(dump(privs))

This works whether or not a player is logged in.
Running that example may give the following:

{
	fly = true,
	interact = true,
	shout = true
}

To set a player’s privs, you use minetest.set_player_privs:

minetest.set_player_privs(name, {
	interact = true,
	shout = true })

To grant a player some privs, you would use a mixture of those two:

local privs = minetest.get_player_privs(name)
privs.vote = true
minetest.set_player_privs(name, privs)

Adding privileges to basic_privs

To allow people with basic_privs to grant and revoke your priv, you’ll need to edit builtin/game/chatcommands.lua:

In both grant and revoke, change the following if statement:

if priv ~= "interact" and priv ~= "shout" and
		not core.check_player_privs(name, {privs=true}) then
	return false, "Your privileges are insufficient."
end

For example, to add vote:

if priv ~= "interact" and priv ~= "shout" and priv ~= "vote" and
		not core.check_player_privs(name, {privs=true}) then
	return false, "Your privileges are insufficient."
end