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How do I give a user admin rights when I am using delegated authentication and cannot log into the admin console?

Issue

  • I am trying to log into the admin console, but cannot log in with the provided onprem-admin-donotdelete user as I am using delegated authentication.

Environment

  • Element Server Suite

Resolution

If you wish to give @bob:server.name admin access, then as a user with kubernetes access to your environment, run:

kubectl exec -n element-onprem -it pods/synapse-postgres-0 -- /usr/bin/psql -d synapse -U synapse_user -c "update users set admin = 1 where name = '@bob:server.name';"

You will want to replace @bob:server.name with the actual user that you wish to give admin to.

Root Cause

The issue is that the delegated authentication does not have an onprem-admin-donotdelete user and so there is no way to log in with the provided admin account.