{"id":22049,"date":"2020-04-27T15:12:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T15:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dam_for_developers_access_control"},"modified":"2024-06-05T16:36:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T23:36:29","slug":"dam_for_developers_access_control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/dam_for_developers_access_control","title":{"rendered":"DAM for Developers: Access Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post, we spoke about AI-Based Content Analysis<\/a>. Now, given the importance of security and privacy, authentication is at the heart of virtually all software. Access control is the layer on top of authentication that determines who can access what.\nWhy is access control necessary? Because within most organizations nowadays is a multitude of digital assets stored in various folders, and functional teams need access to some of those assets to do their work even though their access to private assets must be restricted. Complexity arises as a result, especially during cross-functional collaboration among developers and other teams.<\/p>\n

Cloudinary\u2019s digital asset management (DAM) solution<\/a> features built-in access-control modes. For example, to avoid inadvertent deletions of valid or relevant assets, Cloudinary retains deleted assets for at least 30 days and blocks access to private assets.<\/p>\n

Access Control<\/h2>\n
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Access control is a premium Cloudinary feature, currently available only to accounts with a custom plan or those accounts whose owners have explicitly requested enablement of access control<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mode Setup<\/h3>\n

Once Cloudinary has enabled access control for your account, you can set up the modes for your assets from within your Media Library.<\/p>\n

If an asset is restricted for access, as shown in the image above, no one can view it outside the Media Library\u2014except those individuals who have both the asset\u2019s URL and authentication token.<\/p>\n

To change an asset\u2019s access-control mode, click the asset and then the Summary<\/strong> tab for the Access control<\/strong> section, as shown in the image below:<\/p>\n

\"Summary<\/p>\n

This dialog box then opens:<\/p>\n

\"access<\/p>\n

Here, you can make the asset publicly available or restricted within a certain time frame. For example, you can specify the duration of the related project under Time-limited access<\/strong> to avoid assets being shared outside the company or team while the project is in progress.<\/p>\n

To change the access-control mode for multiple assets, set up upload presets before uploading those assets with the Media Library\u2019s upload widget. By default, the Upload Presets<\/strong> option is not available in the advanced options of the upload widget. Contact Cloudinary support<\/a> to enable that option.<\/p>\n

Authentication Tokens<\/h3>\n

An authentication token is an obfuscated alphanumeric code that ensures that the person requesting access to an asset through its URL has the permission to do so. Cloudinary DAM generates two types of tokens for access control:<\/p>\n