XenForo XenForo - Creating Private Forums

A common question for new XenForo administrators is how to create a private forum for their staff members since the XenForo permissions system is a little bit different than other forum software.

The steps below for XenForo 1.0.x will walk you through it.

1. Create a new category.
   • ACP => Applications => Create New Node => Category
   • Just give it a title, for example name it "Staff Area", and then save it.
2. Make the new category private.
   • ACP => Users => Node Permissions => Click on "Staff Area" (or the name you gave it) => Check "Private Node" option
3. Make the category viewable to your admins & moderators.
   • ACP => Users => Node Permissions => Click on "Staff Area" (or the name you gave it) => Click on the "Administrative" user group name
   • Find the "View Node" listing, should be at or near the top, and turn on the "Allow" option (the green column)
   • Scroll down and "Update Permission" for the group
   • Repeat for the "Moderating" group.

And that is it. You can now create new forum nodes under the private category that only your staff members will see.

To test it, view the forums as a user would see the site.

1. ACP => Users => Test Permissions
   • Try it twice, once for a 'Registered' user who shouldn't see nor have access to the category and also again as a staff member (where their primary group is registered and then have a secondary group of Administrative or Moderating)

Check the description of what exactly "Private Node" does...

If you only take away the "View Node" permission from the group then, yes, the node is no longer shown in the listing but it does not prevent access to the node by that usergroup. In other words, by not marking the node as private you end up hiding the node from showing up in the listing but you aren't taking away access to that node from users who shouldn't be be in there.