Access restricted pages

A TYPO3 page will always be available in the search result only if there is access to the page. This is secured in the final result query. Whether extendToSubpages is taken into account depends on the join_pages-flag (see above). But the page will only be listed if the user has access.

However a page may be indexed more than once if the content differs from usergroup to usergroup or just without login. Still the result display will display only one occurrence, because similar pages (determined based on phash_grouping) will be detected.

The tricky scenario

Say that a page has a content element with some secret information visible for only one usergroup. The page as a whole will be visible for all users. The page will be indexed twice - both without login and with login because page content differs. The problem is that if a search is conducted and matching one of the secret words in the access restricted section, then the page will be in the search result even if the user is not logged in!

The best solution to this problem is to allow the result to be listed anyway, but then HIDE the resume if the index_grlist table cannot confirm positively that the combination of usergroups of the user has access to the result. So the result is there, but no resume shown (The resume might contain hidden text).

External media

Equally for external media they are linked from a TYPO3 page. When an external media is selected we can be sure that the page linking to it can be selected. But we cannot be sure that the link was in a section accessible for the user. Similarly we should make a lookup in the index_grlist table selecting the phash/gr_list by the phash_t3-value of the section record for the search-result. If this is not available we should not display a link to the document and not show resume, but rather link to the page, from which the user can see the real link to the document.

Note

These tricky scenarios exist only if the content on a page differs based on login. It does not affect situations with access restriction to the page as a whole. A general lesson from this is to reduce the number of hidden content elements! Instead use hidden pages. Better, more reliable.