Groups vs. Teams - Why having an owner group is useless and stupid

[MrPresident]

Garry's Mod handles players in two different ways:

groups - This is a behind the scenes, player tracking system for the purpose of assigning rights within the game and some addons/gamemodes.

teams - This is how players are displayed to other players. (IE: On the scoreboard, or when hovering over a player in some gamemodes)

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By default Garry's Mod only has 3 groups. Those groups are superadmin, admin, and user.
According to Garry's Mod a superadmin is on the top. There is not much someone with the superadmin group can not do. Players with the admin group have a little less privilege but are still considered administrators by garrysmod standards.

Without any kind of scoreboard or group to team modification, there is no way you would know what player was in what groups.

UTeam (which is shipped stock with ULX now) takes players in groups and assigns them into teams. Some gamemodes handle their own teams. The TEAM is what displays to other players and this is how they know who you are and what group you are in.

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Some server owners find it necessary to create a group higher than superadmin for themselves and call it something else, like owner. The only problem with this is that you have now prevented some stock gmod functions from seeing you as the top level admin, even though you are. Also, by nature you will then assign other users to the superadmin group and now they have more power than they probably should have (even if you've restricted it by ULX standards .. superadmin is still the default highest group and most addons and gamemodes will treat it as such)

With the UTeam plugin, you can call any group whatever you wish. A solution to this issue is to simply CALL the superadmin group 'Owner' if you wish. By doing this, you ensure that only the top level admin is receiving the top level group. Calling the admin group 'Administrator' or creating another group and having it inherit admin allows you to have other groups for different levels of administrators without giving them that root superadmin access.

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All of that being said, I die a little on the inside when I see requests for help creating an Owner group and having it inherit the superadmin group because I know that those people are then going to turn around and grant superadmin access to players who probably don't need everything that comes with it.

That's the end of my rant. If anyone has any questions regarding this topic, feel free to ask.

[Megiddo]

I agree with you completely.

One technical comment though, if someone creates a group called "owner" and make it inherit from "superadmin", ply:IsSuperAdmin() will return true for that player in the "owner" group (ULX modifies the IsAdmin() and IsSuperAdmin() functions to do this). I still find it odd that people would want to create a group higher than "superadmin" which is supposed to be equivalent to the Linux "root" (I've never heard of Linux users wanting an account higher than "root" before).

[MrPresident]

That's just it. 'superadmin' should be their top group. Call it owner with UTeam if you so wish, and that's the point I was trying to make with my post.

[sabo]

I personally was not aware of how Garry's Mod handles the groups.

I knew Superadmin is highest by default so I did not try and change it.

However I have some custom commands which shall not be granted to "special"admin (superadmin), they should be granted to the owner only.

When I setup the groups and commands for everyone I started looking for new ways to protect the higher authorities.

If I would have been aware of the things stated in this thread I would have simply renamed superadmin to owner and made the lower ranks inherit from admin/user but not for owner(superadmin).

Well I guess it is too late now because it is a pain in the ass to change it at the moment. I would have to remove all the users/groups - basically restore to 0 (default ULX) and then work the way you suggested in here. After I would be done with making the groups Id still have to add the people back to their groups ... unless I use the same names (just different order/inherit) and backup the user.txt file and just upload it back to the server when I am done with the groups lol - I guess thats too easy to be real


tl;dr: If I would have been aware of the things I would have done it the way you said - completely agree with you.

Ill remember this for the future

Well written for a rant btw hahah

[MrPresident]

No worries, it was half a rant and half a public service announcement.

I figured 9/10 people didn't know this information (based on the number of people who try and create groups higher than superadmin) and figured if I could help some people understand it better, why not.

[sabo]

No worries, it was half a rant and half a public service announcement.

I figured 9/10 people didn't know this information (based on the number of people who try and create groups higher than superadmin) and figured if I could help some people understand it better, why not.

Well you helped me alot kind Sir

Kudos to you

[JamminR]

I've been ranting this for years.
Finally, my ravings make sense.
I knew MrP was a twin brother separated at birth...born several years later.

[LuaTenshi]

I think this should be a sticky.

[Megiddo]

I agree, it deserves a sticky and doesn't really belong in any other sub-forum.

[rainbow Dash]

Look, being one of those people who feels the need for an owner group, allow me to explain things from my side of the fence.

When you look at the names to groups (Superadmin, admin, user), it leaves a lot to be desired. Theres little room to fit a rank between SA and admin, and what would you call it anyway? semisuperadmin? MegaAdmin? AboveAdminButNotQuiteASuperAdmin? SuperAdminThatCantTargetTheOwner? These are all rediculous names, and so the logical solution would be to create an Owner group, above SuperAdmin. Then you have room for CoOwner, etc etc etc.

Now, naturally yes there will be some pitfalls from this. All things have a downside. It's to be expected.

In this case, other mods that rely on the user group directly rather than IsSuperAdmin() will not target the owner (although any coders that do that should look up Compatibility and Redundancy in the dictionary)...

However, this is ultimately an issue that needs to be addressed in Garry's Mod itself. There should be a rank for Owner, as in a realistic hierarchy, you dont just say "Aight, Im top dog, these guys here all have the same powers, and you lot that are left are just users". No. In a realistic hierarchy, you would have something like an Owner, a Co-Owner (if applicable), A few Head Admins (aka Super Admin), then your regular admins, then your moderators that have only the essentials and nothing that can be abused, then your players.

Thats how a realistic hierarchy works. And garry cant say "That will work for you anyway" because all he has to do is turn around and look at Facepunch. Is facepunch sorted by "Garry, admins, non admins"? No. Its sorted by "Garry, some guys that can almost do garrys job when he cant be bothered, admins, mods, donators, users, banned users, spammers".

So when it comes to it, the 3 standard groups do not cover 99% of realistic server environments. Yes, it works perfectly fine in LAN parties, Listen servers, and other constantly monitored situations, but when you get around to say having a dedicated server, or a large community (HellsGamers, KickAss Servers, GMTower), you need to have a finer control of who is where in a hierarchy.

Granted, ULX does this anyway, but there was a time, and not too long ago too, when having ulx do this for us just wasn't enough.

Take for instance DarkRP's FAdmin. Just a few weeks ago DarkRP was updated to include immunity levels. Without these, you couldn't make an Owner group that could target SuperAdmins. But you needed to make the same group in FAdmin as you did in ULX in order to have any powers in either mod.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you look at things straight forward, yes, you do not need an Owner group, but in the real world, with a real hierarchy, you need to be able to take command over your staff, so people know what their place is. Otherwise you could get SuperAdmins challenging the authority of the owner of a server and causing hassles by terrorizing the server and banning the owner.

[JamminR]

(although any coders that do that should look up Compatibility and Redundancy in the dictionary)...
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Otherwise you could get SuperAdmins challenging the authority of the owner of a server and causing hassles by terrorizing the server and banning the owner.
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I'm of the opinion you're being daft and don't get it.
Garry made the ability to add as many groups as you want (hence Gmod's IsUserGroup).
SuperAdmin is meant to be top dog, owner, host, whatever. The equivalent of what's been known in multiuser environments as root or superuser.
Any coder that expects a non-standard group they randomly created to be above SuperAdmin, and doesn't think about the thought of standard Gmod mods looking for IsSuperAdmin should be the one to look up compatibility in the dictionary.
By no means are we saying multiple levels beside SuperAdmin and Admin shouldn't exist.
We're just saying don't expect something written in a Gmod standards-compatible way to work when a particular mod makes thier own groups, and then some other mod that gives special access based on isadmin or issuperadmin doesn't recognize it.

[ULXGmodFan]

I did not know this.

Also I don't really understand. My Superadmins can't handle or edit private slots for example and only I, the Owner, can. Eventhough i've created an Owner group in the beginning of my server that inhertited rights from Superadmin.

[Neku]

Coders assume superadmin is top dog.

Superadmin gets server control.

You get screwed over.

[JamminR]

My Superadmins can't handle or edit private slots for example and only I, the Owner, can. Eventhough i've created an Owner group in the beginning of my server that inhertited rights from Superadmin.

This sounds unusual, and if it's bothersome to you, would best be handled in another thread started in Help and Support.
Follow the FAQ for 'having trouble with access', which will help you troubleshoot, and if not corrected, gives instructions for providing us more information.

[ULXGmodFan]

This sounds unusual, and if it's bothersome to you, would best be handled in another thread started in Help and Support.
Follow the FAQ for 'having trouble with access', which will help you troubleshoot, and if not corrected, gives instructions for providing us more information.

Oh i'm sorry you must've misunderstand. It's exactly how I configurated it. So I don't really understand why this topic is there and why it would be such an issue. Ranks seem to work fine for me. Also superadmins are only the people I know personally and trust. And so should every server be.