[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/"
 nickname="smcv"
 subject="comment 1"
 date="2012-04-15T20:53:44Z"
 content="""
Read/view access and write/edit access are rather different.
You can limit write access via wiki configuration, and even
configure it over the web with [[plugins/websetup]].

The only way to limit read access is to restrict access to the
 entire wiki via `.htaccess` or other web server configuration,
preferably combined with use of `https`.
IkiWiki can't limit read access to pages on its own[*],
because it's a wiki compiler: when a page is viewed, the web
server serves the compiled HTML without IkiWiki being involved.

The best way to integrate access control into IkiWiki would
probably be to have a CGI user interface for `.htaccess` or
equivalent - but you'd still have to be careful, because,
for instance, if a user can edit public pages, then they
can insert a `\[[!include]]` directive to make the content
of a private page public. As a result, the safest way to
use it is to keep public and private information in
separate wikis.

[\*] strictly speaking, it *could* via a new plugin, but
that would defeat many of its advantages
"""]]