minetest_modding_book/_en/players/privileges.md

title	layout	root	idx	description	redirect_from
Privileges	default	../..	4.1	Registering privs.	/en/chapters/privileges.html

Introduction

Privileges, often called privs for short, give players the ability to perform certain actions. Server owners can grant and revoke privileges to control which abilities each player has.

• When to use Privileges
• Declaring Privileges
• Checking for Privileges
• Getting and Setting Privileges
• Adding Privileges to basic_privs

When to use Privileges

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

Good Privileges:

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

Bad Privileges:

• moderator
• admin
• elf
• dwarf

Declaring Privileges

Use register_privilege to declare a new privilege:

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

give_to_singleplayer defaults to true when not specified, so it isn't actually needed in the above definition.

Checking for Privileges

To quickly check whether a player has all the required privileges:

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

In this example, has is true if the player has all the privileges needed. If has is false, then missing will contain a key-value table of the missing privileges.

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

If you don't need to check the missing privileges, you can put check_player_privs directly into the if statement.

if not minetest.check_player_privs(name, { interact=true }) then
    return false, "You need interact for this!"
end

Getting and Setting Privileges

Player privileges can be accessed or modified regardless of the player being online.

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

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

Privileges are always specified as a key-value table with the key being the privilege name and the value being a boolean.

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

Adding Privileges to basic_privs

Players with the basic_privs privilege are able to grant and revoke a limited set of privileges. It's common to give this privilege to moderators, so that they can grant and revoke interact and shout, but can't grant themselves or other players privileges such as give and server, which have greater potential for abuse.

To add a privilege to basic_privs and adjust which privileges your moderators can grant and revoke from other players, you must change the basic_privs setting. To do this, you must edit the minetest.conf file.

By default, basic_privs has the following value:

basic_privs = interact, shout

To add vote, update this to:

basic_privs = interact, shout, vote

This will allow players with basic_privs to grant and revoke the vote privilege.