More security for the Contao Manager

With the just released new version of Contao 5.5, Andy has also worked on the Contao Manager and equipped it with some new features which are now released as version 1.9.0.

While working on the new features the focus was on the protection of your indispensable helper tool. All new feature allow you to secure your Contao Manager even better.

Introduction of passkeys and two-factor authentication

Passkeys are now used by default when setting up a new user account. Passkeys eliminate the need for passwords and make logins more convenient and yet more secure. Support for passkeys has also found its way into Contao 5.5. If for some reason you don't want to switch to passkeys yet, you can now additionally protect your user account from unauthorized access using two-factor authentication.

Simplified user management

In the past, if you wanted to create an additional user account, you had to make a manual entry in the users.json on your server. As of today, this is a thing of the past, because the Manager now offers user management!
And as if that wasn't enough, there are now four different user roles:

• READ: can see the installed packages and read log files, but cannot change the system.
• UPDATE: may update existing packages and perform maintenance tasks (e.g. clear cache).
• INSTALL: may update and install packages and change system settings.
• ADMIN: can use all functions of the Contao Manager.

The support for different user roles was sponsored by trakked.io.

Updating the components

The Manager's foundation was also revamped. The minimum version of PHP has been raised to 8.1 and Symfony 6.4 and Vue 3 are now doing their magic.
If you are still using PHP 7, you will be automatically downgraded to the latest version of the Contao Manager that is compatible with this PHP version. However, an update to PHP 8 is strongly recommended for security reasons.

For the audiovisual among us, Christian has created a video worth watching.

Enjoy the new features of the Contao Manager!