Hide people list and invites from non-staff members?

[Luke-Sanborn]

Hello,
I have a GeoNode 5.1.0 Docker deployment with the env var LOCKDOWN_GEONODE=True. However, registered users can still view all other registered users within GeoNode. Additionally it seems all registered users are allowed to invite users. In my use case, there will be users from external organizations, and I do not want them to be able to see the full list of users in the system.
Is there a way to hide the People and Groups lists and invites for users who are not staff members or superusers?

[yudin-s]

I would not expect LOCKDOWN_GEONODE=True to hide those directory-style pages by itself. It is mainly a site/resource access posture, not a staff-only switch for every social/account view.

In current GeoNode routing, the people, groups, and invitations surfaces are separate:

• /people/ is routed to the people/profile_list.html template directly.
• individual profile pages use profile_detail, which is @login_required, but it still lets any logged-in user view active profiles.
• /groups/ is routed separately through the groups app; private groups are hidden from non-members, but public/group listing behavior is not controlled by LOCKDOWN_GEONODE.
• /invitations/ uses GeoNodeSendInvite, and that class is decorated with login_required, not staff/superuser-only.

So for your requirement, I would treat this as a customization/policy override rather than a built-in env var:

1. Disable open registration if external users should not self-create accounts: set ACCOUNT_OPEN_SIGNUP=False and invite/provision accounts through your own admin process.
2. Hide/remove the People and Groups links from your theme/templates so normal users do not see the navigation.
3. Add server-side protection too, because hiding links is not enough. In a project override, wrap the people browse/profile views, group list view, and invitation view with a user.is_staff or user.is_superuser check, or replace those URL patterns with staff-only views.
4. Check the API side as well: GeoNode exposes user-related routes under /api/v2/users/ and /api/users. If the user directory is sensitive, verify those endpoints with a normal account and restrict/override the corresponding DRF permissions if needed.

For invitations specifically, the current code path is the clearest: GeoNodeSendInvite is only login_required. If you want staff-only invitations, override that view or URL with user_passes_test(lambda u: u.is_staff or u.is_superuser) / a staff-only class wrapper.

Short version: I do not see a single GeoNode 5.1 setting that means "registered users can log in but cannot see other users/groups or invite people." You will probably need a small project-level URL/view/template/API permission override for that privacy model.

If this matches what you are seeing, please mark it as the answer so others can find the lockdown-vs-directory distinction.