Correctly label all site-owning super-admin permissions

Created on 2 October 2009, over 15 years ago
Updated 19 May 2025, 17 days ago

The security team now has a FAQ that mentions the following:

Another case where no security announcement is required is when an exploit requires one of the following permissions:

  • Administer filters
  • Administer users
  • Administer permissions
  • Administer content types
  • Administer site configuration

In general, every permission that in itself already enables site-takeover.

Why do we have 5 different "super-admin" permissions? Clearly not every Drupal site admin on Earth understands that all 5 of those are effectively "own the site" perms. If having access to any of them gives you powers to accomplish all of them, why pretend there's any priv separation among them at all? Why not a single "super-user" permission? Something like:

"Administer as superuser" ?

Wouldn't that be a lot clearer for people trying to configure permissions on their sites? Wouldn't that remove the illusion that any of these permissions are actually distinct that could safely be granted to a non-super-admin on their own?

📌 Task
Status

Active

Version

11.0 🔥

Component

base system

Created by

🇺🇸United States dww

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    Makes Drupal easier to use. Preferred over UX, D7UX, etc.

  • Security

    It is used for security vulnerabilities which do not need a security advisory. For example, security issues in projects which do not have security advisory coverage, or forward-porting a change already disclosed in a security advisory. See Drupal’s security advisory policy for details. Be careful publicly disclosing security vulnerabilities! Use the “Report a security vulnerability” link in the project page’s sidebar. See how to report a security issue for details.

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