$kirby->impersonate()

Become any existing user or disable the current user

• Read the guide
• kirby/src/Cms/AppUsers.php#L51

$kirby->impersonate(?string $who = null, ?Closure $callback = null): mixed

Parameters

Name	Type	Default	Description
$who	string|null	null	User ID or email address, null to use the actual user again, 'kirby' for a virtual admin user or 'nobody' to disable the actual user
$callback	Closure|null	null	Optional action function that will be run with the permissions of the impersonated user; the impersonation will be reset afterwards

Return type

mixed

Exceptions

Type	Description
Throwable

Parent class

Kirby\Cms\App

$who

There are four options for the $who parameter:

• a username (impersonates the specific user with their permissions)
• 'kirby' (impersonates the allmighty user with full permissions)
• 'nobody' (disables the currently logged in user, added in Kirby 3.5.0)
• null (resets the impersonation)

Example

<?php

$kirby = kirby();
$kirby->impersonate('kirby');

page('notes/a-great-article')->update([
  'author' => 'Homer Simpson'
]);

The impersonation will be active for all code that runs in the current request after the call to $kirby->impersonate(). If you want to limit the impact to a single operation, call the method with a callback (see below).

With callback

If you only want a single operation to run with different privileges, use a callback:

<?php

$kirby = kirby();
$result = $kirby->impersonate('kirby', function () {
  page('notes/a-great-article')->update([
    'author' => 'Homer Simpson'
  ]);

  return 'this will be returned to $result above';
});

The impersonation automatically gets reset to the previous value after the callback returns.