The default Drupal installation comes with three standard roles: anonymous user, authenticated user, and administrator. The anonymous user is used for any nonmembers visiting the site and has limited rights on a site used for a learning environment. All site members belong to the authenticated user role; consequently, any permission granted to the authenticated user role is given to every site member. The administrator user is given all permissions by default, much like the first user created on the site; as new content types are created and modules are enabled, you will have to continue to update its permissions. In Chapter 2, Installing Drupal, we assigned privileges to the authenticated user role. As discussed in Chapter 4, Creating a Teacher Blog, the rights assigned to user roles are cumulative; therefore, if a single user is assigned to multiple roles, that user has the accumulated permissions of all the roles.
On small sites, some site administrators...