Today you have to provide credentials to create a new batch. At the F2F in January 2024 we talked about dropping this restriction. Instead anonymous users should be allowed create batches up to a configurable maximum size.

Approach 1: Make user batch_create credential parameters optional

• Make batch_create authorize batch creation for anonymous users, and
• add a configuration property for maximum batch size that only applies to anonymous users.

Approach 2: Remove batch_create credential parameters

• Remove the user credential parameters from the batch_create method,
• add a configuration property for maximum batch size that applies to all users,
• remove the (now redundant) RPCAPI.enable_batch_create config parameter, and
• add a configuration document for using the batch function.

Clean up

• Remove the user_create method, and
• remove the RPCAPI.enable_user_create config parameter,
• sever the relation between RPCAPI.enable_batch_create and RPCAPI.enable_add_batch_job configuration properties, making the former into a proper property of its own, and
• change the default value of RPCAPI.enable_batch_create to false.

Alternatives

• Keep the RPCAPI.enable_batch_create config parameter.

Stabilization

Tracking issue

Affected interfaces

Additions:

• A new configuration property.

Additional affected interfaces for approach 2

Incompatibly changed:

• batch_create
• RPCAPI.enable_batch_create

Dependencies

Dependencies for approach 1

• None

Dependencies for approach 2

• This approach depends on Multiple zm-rpcapi configurations #1152.

Overlapping proposals

• AFAIK this feature was first discussed in Updated API methods for batches #1119 (comment) and Updated API methods for batches #1119 (comment). This write-up has also been guided by the batch GUI discussions we had at the F2F in January 2024. I feel there are too many ideas in Updated API methods for batches #1119 and it's better to split this part out to its own issue.