Talking Drupal #472 - Access Policy API

Today we are talking about Access Policy API, What it does, and
How you can use it with guest Kristiaan Van den Eynde. We’ll also
cover Visitors as our module of the week.


For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/472
Topics

What is the Access Policy API

Why does Drupal need the Access Policy API

How did Drupal handle access before

How does the Access Policy API interact with roles

Does a module exist that shows a UI

What is the difference between Policy Based Access Control
(PBAC), Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) and Role Based
Access Control (RBAC)

How does Access Policy API work with PBAC, ABAC and RBAC

Can you apply an access policy via a recipe

Is there a roadmap

What was it like going through pitchburg

How can people get involved

Resources

Access Policy API

Access Policy

Talking Drupal #226 Group

Flexible Permissions

External roles

Test Super access policy

Access policy talk at Drupalcon barcelona

D.o Issue about exception on security issue

Guests

Kristiaan Van den Eynde - kristiaanvandeneynde
Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped
MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu


Brief description:

Have you ever wanted a Drupal-native solution for
tracking website visitors and their behavior? There’s a
module for that



Module name/project name:

Visitors



Brief history

How old: created in Mar 2009 by gashev, though recent
releases are by Steven Ayers (bluegeek9)

Versions available: 8.x-2.19, which works with Drupal 10
and 11



Maintainership

Actively maintained

Security coverage

Test coverage

Documentation guide is available

Number of open issues: 20 open issues, none of which are
bugs against the 8.x branch



Usage stats:

Over 6,000 sites



Module features and usage

A benefit of using a Drupal-native solution is that you
retain full ownership over your visitor data. Not sharing
that data with third parties can be important for data
protection regulations, as well as data privacy concerns.

You also have a variety of reports you can access
directly within the Drupal UI, including top pages,
referrers, and more

There is a submodule for geoip lookups using Maxmind, if
you also want reporting on what region, country, or city your
visitors hail from

It provides drush commands to download a geoip database,
and then update your data based on geoip lookups using that
database

It should be mentioned that the downside of using Drupal
as your analytics solution is the potential performance
impact and also a likely uptick in usage for hosts that
charge based on the number of dynamic requests served