Question [Merged topic] RSS Feed for Registered Users?

Hi All

I'm currently finalising my first Joomla website and have an issue that I can't seem to sort with the RSS feed of the Kunena forum section.

The site is using Joomla 1.5.15, Community Builder 1.2.1 and Kunena 1.5.7 and it all works seemlessly.

The only issue is that if I set the forum so that is only viewable by registered users then the RSS feed doesn't work.

If the forum is open to public viewing then the feed works fine. However if I set the menu link to just show up to registered users in Joomla I get the following when I try to validate the RSS feed via validator.w3.org/feed/ :

If I set the forum to be only bviewable by registered users via Kunena the I get the following:

I've searched this forum and the only other similar thread is this one:

www.kunena.com/forum/139-solved-or-prior...-on-first-line#38586

But is doesn't seem to cover my situation.

Can anyone offer some advice or am I stuck with having to have a public viewable forum to get the RSS feed?

Hi

My first thought is, that the RSS does exactly what it shall; Only list posts from public forums.

Kunena 1.6 will have more features regarding RSS, but it will probably still only be public forums that is visible.

To "solve" your problem, you will have to edit the code for the rss part, but that is really not recommended.

What good is a closed forum, if you can follow the postings in RSS feeds? I dont see a purpose, but please enlighten me.

I agree, LittleJohn. The title pretty much says it all. How can you have a RSS feed for "registered users"? That doesn't make sense. If your forum can only be accessed by people after they've logged-in, why would you require a function to access that same information as an RSS feed which, as we all know, doesn't require logging-in? This is like storing your valuables in a locked car but leaving the windows open. :S

Hi Guys.

Thanks for your quick replies. I understand where you're coming from but don't see it quite as you do.

Apart from a home page and contact us section the rest of my site is members only with the forum being the major part.

The members find the RSS really useful in keeping up with what's going and was one of the must have features when we switched from our old system.

I understand that RSS is a public accessible system when I make the forum private the only way to access the link is via the members area so you would have to be registered even to find the link in the first place.

If you're saying that it's not possible to make the forum private and still keep the RSS feed is it possible to remove the 'Register' link at the top of the forum?

monkums wrote:

I understand that RSS is a public accessible system when I make the forum private the only way to access the link is via the members area so you would have to be registered even to find the link in the first place.

Not true.

monkums wrote:

If you're saying that it's not possible to make the forum private and still keep the RSS feed is it possible to remove the 'Register' link at the top of the forum?

You can do that - there are many topics that will show you how it's done - but I don't know what that will achieve. It certainly won't circumvent the publicness of RSS and the problems you already have in generating a feed fromt closed/restricted discussion topics. You need a hack and you need a way of "policing" making the public aware that there's a backdoor way of accessing your confidential matter.

As we've mentioned before, the terms "RSS feed" and "registered users only" are almost mutually exclusive.

I agree, I am looking for this functionality as well.

I disagree with the backdoor notion. We could simply make the RSS feed inaccessible to users and have the feed link completely private.

Let me summarise my understanding on this because it's a huge puzzle in my mind. An "RSS feed" is basically a web page that doesn't require you to login. Right? OK, so how does the website manager know who's reading the RSS feed? How do the other registered users know who's reading the RSS feed. By it's very nature, an RSS feed is a free-for-all.

So, what is being asked for is this: let's develop a system that (somehow) discriminates between information that's accessible only to a certain class of user. That, in a nutshell, is the problem.

RSS feeds can't discriminate. There's no facility to do that.

So, unless you can solve the problem of how to login to a website without actually logging-in to a website, I don't know a solution can be found for this question under the current security model imposed by Joomla and the W3C .

Kelco83 wrote:

I disagree with the backdoor notion. We could simply make the RSS feed inaccessible to [guests?] and have the feed link completely private.

True. You could disable the RSS icon when guests view your forum but if hackers are able to guess the URL of an RSS feed (and it's really easy to do that) they'll have access to whatever information you push out via that facility. Add to that, what happens when your website is spidered by a search engine, like Google?

So what you need to do (in order to use the RSS feed idea) is this: when a user requests the RSS feed (via a web browser, news reader or some other software - some email programs and mobile phones have this technology built-in) you need to issue a challenge/response mechanism that asks for a username/password combination. Someone could make a lot of money developing this protocol, I'm sure, if it doesn't already exist.

In the meantime, here's the simple solution: if you want to restrict access, encourage your users to visit your website and login.

Well, joomla has an rss reader. Its almost like these 2 functions were made for eachother.


Also, some of wish to make the forums public, we just don't want the "administrator has disabled write access" on every post.

I guess I should expound on this a little more. I guess "Security" can mean different things.

To me, secure means that spammers can't come in to my forum and post. I don't mind information that is viewable. Also, if someone wants to be heard in the forum for a community of people, the least they can do is register. It shows atleast some form of support. The last thing I want is a good conversation going and then "guest" comes in and derails the whole thread.

DO I want google indexing my site? Of course I do. Do I want my RSS viewable to anyone, you bet.

I put hoops in place to post, not to view.

If someone is concerned about restricted forum posts becoming public, shouldn't the forum's software know not to post secure categories in the public RSS feed?

The purpose for such a thing is to have recent discussions in Joomla for people reading articles to see. RSS may not be the way to accomplish this, but for now, it seems the most logical way to drive casual readers to the forum.

monkums wrote:

The only issue is that if I set the forum so that is only viewable by registered users then the RSS feed doesn't work.

Kelco83 wrote:

I put hoops in place to post, not to view.

If someone is concerned about restricted forum posts becoming public, shouldn't the forum's software know not to post secure categories in the public RSS feed?

In the first-mentioned, this is why we are having the discussion. I agree, that, on the face of things, Kunena does not elegantly handle the sitation where there are no publicly-viewable forums.

In the second-mentioned case, this shouldn't be a problem; Kunena already addresses this matter, IMHO.

Kelco83 wrote:

I am looking for this functionality as well

Now I'm confused. :S

Perhaps, the question is more about the message that Kunena generates because there are no publicly viewable forums? What if the Kunena RSS feed said something like "I'm sorry, but there are no messages that I can show you because the discussions are only accessible to users who login to the website"? That would be a nicer way of saying things, instead of

This feed does not validate.
• line 1, column 0: Undefined root element: div [help]
<div>This forum is open only to registered and logged-in users.</div><div>If ...

Agreed?

Well, just looking at the feed the forum provides in comparison to Joomla's something is off. Maybe its a bug.