[Mediawiki-l] create, rename a user - external user data base (2nd attempt)

[Isaac Gonzalez]

the way I handle this is when the user does not exist in my external
database, but exists in the wiki, I scramble their password, so they won't
be able to login to Wiki interface, but they will not lose any of their
pages.  I also disabled the email password part in localsettings.php so they
won't be able to get a new password, so that way the external database
controls the usernames/logins in the wiki.

-----Original Message-----
From: mediawiki-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Uwe Baumbach
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 4:41 AM
To: mediawiki-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [Mediawiki-l] create,rename a user - external user data base
(2nd attempt)


Hi,

since this is a very important topic for us I repeat my question(s) here.

P.S.:

If these questions are too stupid:
(How) Can I do a full text search of the whole mailing list archive?

===================================================
Is there a official of half-official way to rename a user _name_ ?!

Because:
We have to use an external user database with existing (about) 2000 users.
With the first logon at our wiki a user record will be created with the name
taken from the external table (using AuthPlugin.php)

Only now we realized that there were "bad" user names, e.g. "X0456"
(formerly only a logon name - in MW a apparent name) or "kilroy" (first
letter in lower case). Those user names are already in use with a lot of
creatings/changes of articles.

Furthermore in this external database a UserID (number) is used - and copied
into the MW user table too.

Now we have two situations that claim renaming username:
a) The user wants to do so (because of senseless user name). In that case we
could suppress this feature for the future in our external application, but
if would be nice to have it.
b) Admins want to do so (because of user names with underscores in the name
or first letter in lower case already in the MW user table...)

The way _I_ see is: changing all xyz_user_text fields in all MW tables and
rename/redirect the user page article.

1. Would that be stable?
2. Is there a way to do so transparently from the MW surface (for admins
only)?
3. The function getCanonicalName in AuthPlugin.php can change the user name
gotten from external.
Is this change persistant in that way that a new created user record would
get the "munged" user name?

-- 
Thanks.

Uwe (Baumbach)
U.Baumbach at web.de

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