MeshCentral Feature Request: User Groups
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Tagging @Ylian
For both ourselves and some others that we work with that use MeshCentral, our one big request is for user group management (e.g. user security groups.) This is currently the top thing stopping us from being able to leave other products behind.
Why do we need it?
When you deal with many clients (each represented by a device group) you need to add users to every group to securely control who has access to what. We have a large number of users, so adding every user, to every group that they should be in is tedious and error prone. And more importantly removing them when roles change is tedious and risky. We are talking hundreds of groups and dozens of techs, so the combination is thousands of security pairings (tens of thousands, really, and growing.)
What we want is single security groups for users. That way we can create a group, like "Helpdesk", and add "Helpdesk" to nearly every device group. When we hire someone new (which is pretty regular) we just add them to the "Helpdesk" group and they get added to every proper device group. Having to add a new tech to hundreds of groups is a problem. (People quitting is easy, you just remove the user.)
Part of the complexity is that our end users (clients) often want to use MeshCentral for access to their own devices as well. So they can't all be grouped into one big "managed by helpdesk" group, we need individual security controls for rather small groupings. (Would be extra nice if machines could be in more than one group at a time so that we could have more granular security controls even still, but that's not remotely as critical.)
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@scottalanmiller Makes sense, I will start working on it. This is not going to be easy as it requires a change to how access control is done and there is more user interface work to be done to manage user groups, etc. This said, as you explained, it's an important feature. I will like to have users test the feature when I have early versions. I will post again with progress.
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@Ylian said in MeshCentral Feature Request: User Groups:
@scottalanmiller Makes sense, I will start working on it. This is not going to be easy as it requires a change to how access control is done and there is more user interface work to be done to manage user groups, etc. This said, as you explained, it's an important feature. I will like to have users test the feature when I have early versions. I will post again with progress.
Thanks, that would be awesome. And we are happy to test as early as you need!
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Changing the user access control system is going cause a bunch of trashing in the code, published MeshCentral v0.4.6-q just now with lots of changes in preparation for user groups. If you spot anything wrong, please let me know.
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@Ylian said in MeshCentral Feature Request: User Groups:
Changing the user access control system is going cause a bunch of trashing in the code, published MeshCentral v0.4.6-q just now with lots of changes in preparation for user groups. If you spot anything wrong, please let me know.
Deploying right away!
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So far, so good!
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@scottalanmiller Someone reported the removing a device caused a server crash, but I just fixed it in v0.4.6-r. Apart from that, I started working on the user interface for managing user groups, it's in the "My Users" / "Groups" sub tab but it does nothing now. I plan to build a lot of the UI and groups management first.
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@Ylian said in MeshCentral Feature Request: User Groups:
@scottalanmiller Someone reported the removing a device caused a server crash, but I just fixed it in v0.4.6-r. Apart from that, I started working on the user interface for managing user groups, it's in the "My Users" / "Groups" sub tab but it does nothing now. I plan to build a lot of the UI and groups management first.
Awesome! We are all very excited.
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Published MeshCentral v0.4.6-s, making progress. The user interface in mostly done, you can make user groups by you can't do anything else with the group right now.
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@Ylian I had already seen it before I checked here
Hard at work using MeshCentral right now for a project. -
Published MeshCentral v0.4.6-u with more progress made on the user interface. Clicking on a user will now show it's device groups and user group memberships and you can add/remove from that screen. User groups don't do anything yet, still a few more days before I try to enable them.
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Just published MeshCentral v0.4.6-y with User Groups feature fully enabled. Everything should be real-time so, creating a new group, adding users and adding the group to a device group should all show immediate results on all logged in user sessions. Good QA testing and feedback on this feature would be most appreciated.
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@Ylian we've upgraded!
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@scottalanmiller Feedback appreciated, let me know if it works for you. I did post a new blog on this topic today.
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@Ylian said in MeshCentral Feature Request: User Groups:
@scottalanmiller Feedback appreciated, let me know if it works for you. I did post a new blog on this topic today.
We've started testing it and so far, yes, it is working!
