How to prevent people from editing other's workspace options in Perforce ?

Question

Hi,

I am new to Perforce. There seems to be a a misconfiguration in our current Server, as anybody can change anyone else's workspace options.

Does anyone know how to quickly fix that problem ?

Thanks,

Thomas

Answer 1

I don't know of a way to easily or quickly fix the problem.

Having said that, is the ability being there really a problem? Or is it that different people think they have ownership of different workspace configurations? Here where I work, we prefix the username to any workspace that we want to maintain as our own, and leave it off of shared workspaces (or use a different prefix, at times).

If it is a situation where the ownership of a workspace is unclear and that is causing issues, this would resolve your problems. If it is a situation where coworkers are ignoring the ownership and intentionally making changes, you likely have other problems to worry about.

Answer 2

Not a direct fix, but you can track changes made to client specs by implementing a "Spec Depot". See KB article here.

I must admit prior to reading your question I did not even realise you could modify another user's client spec without admin rights. In the 9 years of using Perforce I have never come across that as being an actual problem for people.

cjhuitt's suggestion of prefixing a client spec with user name/initials is a good one, and is pretty common practice, particularly in larger installations.

Answer 3

If you set the 'locked' option in the workspace, then the workspace can only be modified by its owner (or by a user with 'admin' or higher access level). It'll also prevent other users from using or deleting that workspace.

Answer 4

Locking the workspace is the way to go, thanks Heath.

I have worked on a small PERL script to lock all existing workspaces:

#*******************************************************************************
# Module:   LockClients.pl
# Purpose:  A perl script using the CLI to lock all clients on a server
# 

# Debug Flag:
$DEBUG_FLAG = 1 ; # 1 for TRUE, 0 for FALSE

# Get the list of clients on the server:
@list = `p4 clients`;

foreach $client (@list) {
    # Get client name:
    $clientname = (split / /,$client)[1];
    if ( $DEBUG_FLAG ) { print ("Client name: $clientname \n"); }
    # Prepare temporary file name (will contain the new config spec of the client):
    $filename = sprintf("tmp_%s.txt",$clientname);
    if ( $DEBUG_FLAG ) { print ("Temporary file: $filename \n"); }
    # Get client spec:
    @clientspec = `p4 client -o $clientname`;
    # Write client spec to file:
    open (VIRTUAL , ">$filename" ) || die "ERROR: Could not create $filename \n";
    foreach $line (@clientspec) {
     if ($line =~ m/^Options:.*$/m){
      if ( $DEBUG_FLAG ) { print ("Line before substitution: $line"); }
      $line =~ s/unlocked/locked/;
      if ( $DEBUG_FLAG ) { print ("Line after substitution: $line"); }
     }
    print VIRTUAL $line;
    }
    close (VIRTUAL);
    # Import new config spec in client:
    `p4 client -i -f < $filename`;
    if ( $DEBUG_FLAG ) { print ("Workspace $clientname locked !\n\n"); }
}       
exit 0;

I will now work to try to enforce the lock option with a trigger after a workspace is created or edited. :)

Thomas