For small Ravada installations users can be added manually from the administration web page. There are more options for adding users and groups.

Users Batch Uploading

From the users administration page there is a button “New user”. There users can be added one by one or uploaded from a file clicking in “Batch Upload”

Plain users and password

We consider plain users as usernames stored in the SQL database. Create a file with names and passwords separated by colon (:) and upload it.

Delegated login

Access can be delegated to another third party application. Currently these are suported:

LDAP
CAS
OpenID

By default, any user that is granted access is allowed to use Ravada. In some environments the administrator may want to filter the users allowed. In this case, first disable “Auto create users” at the administration settings. From now on only previously authorized users can log in.

Then upload a file with a list of allowed usernames.

Groups

It is also possible to populate a group either manually one by one or uploading a list of members.

Uploading with web browser

Just create a text file with a list of users, one at each line and upload from the “Group Administration” page.

File Formats

There are two file formats for uploading users and groups. You can either use text or json.

Text Files

Text files should have the .txt extension. The files must contain one entry in each line.

Example: local users with password:

Choose plain type from the uploading page. users.txt

alice:lkjdfljg
bob:lkj¡klñkdgf
charles:kkhofgo

Example: local group

Create a file with the name of the group, ie: accounting.txt

alice
bob
daniel

JSON Files

Using JSON, administrators can upload simple or complex list of users, groups and members.

Example: json users

This is a list of users, they will be uploaded as external auth, because the password is not declared.

{ "users": ["alice","bob","charlie"]}

Example: json groups

This is a list of groups.

{ "groups": ["accounting","it","marketing"]}

Example: json groups and users

Both users and groups can be uploaded in the same JSON file.

{ "users": ["alice","bob","charlie"]
, "groups": ["accounting","it","marketing"]}

Example: json group members

This is an extended form of group and users creation. Inside the groups listing you have to specify the name and a list of members. The users do not need to be listed separately, they will be created from the members list.

{
    "groups": [
        {"name":"accounting"
            ,"members": ["alice","bob"]
        }
        ,{"name":"it"
            ,"members": ["alice","charlie"]
        }
        ,{"name": "marketing"
            ,"members": ["daniel","ethan"]
        }
    ]
}

Example: flushing group members

When uploading group members, by default they will be added to the group. If you need to remove old members, you can add an option to flush it.

If you run the previous example, then this one, the user “alice” will be removed from the accounting group.

{
    "options": { "flush": "1" }
    ,"groups": [
        {"name":"accounting"
            ,"members": ["bob"]
        }
        ,{"name":"it"
            ,"members": ["alice","charlie"]
        }
        ,{"name": "marketing"
            ,"members": ["daniel","ethan"]
        }
    ]
}

Example: removing empty groups

You can add an option to also remove empty groups. It is important to follow these rules:

Add both “flush” and “remove_empty” options with value “1”.
Add a list of empty members

After uploading this file, the group accounting will be removed.

{
    "options": { "flush": "1", "remove_empty": "1" }
    ,"groups": [
        {"name":"accounting"
            ,"members": []
        }
        ,{"name":"it"
            ,"members": ["alice","charlie"]
        }
        ,{"name": "marketing"
            ,"members": ["daniel","ethan"]
        }
    ]
}

CLI

It is also possible to upload the group members from the command line. In the Ravada host server use the rvd_back command.

Add members to one group

By default, the group name will be the name of the file. So this command will create the group “students” and will add all the names in the file to it.

sudo rvd_back --upload-group-members=students.txt

The group name can be supplied if necessary:

sudo rvd_back --upload-group-members=members.txt --group=students

Add members to many groups

If you want to create a large amount of groups, store the files in a directory and pass it to the CLI. All the groups will be created using the filenames as names for each group.

sudo rvd_back --upload-group-members=/var/lib/groups/