Sharing private documentation

Note

This feature is only available on Read the Docs for Business.

You can share your project with users outside of your company:

• by sending them a secret link,

• by giving them a password.

These methods will allow them to view specific projects or versions of a project inside your organization.

Additionally, you can use a HTTP Authorization Header. This is useful to have access from a script.

Enabling sharing

• Go into your project’s Admin page and click on Sharing.

• Click on New Share

• Select access type (secret link, password, or HTTP header token), add an expiration date and a Description so you remember who you’re sharing it with.

• Check Allow access to all versions? if you want to grant access to all versions, or uncheck that option and select the specific versions you want grant access to.

• Click Save.

• Get the info needed to share your documentation with other users:

  • If you have selected secret link, copy the link that is generated

  • In case of password, copy the link and password

  • For HTTP header token, you need to pass the Authorization header in your HTTP request.

• Give that information to the person who you want to give access.

Note

You can always revoke access in the same panel.

Users can log out by using the Log Out link in the RTD flyout menu.

Sharing methods

Secret link

Once the person you send the link to clicks the link, they will have access to the documentation while their browser window is open.

If you want to link to a specific page, you can do this by passing the next query parameter in the URL. For example https://mydocs.readthedocs-hosted.com/_/sharing/xxxxxxxxx?next=/en/latest/page.html.

Tip

This is useful for sharing access to an entire set of documentation for a user. You can embed these links in an internal wiki, for example, and all your employees will be able to browse the docs without a login.

Password

Once the person you send the link to clicks on the link, they will see an Authorization required page asking them for the password you generated. When the user enters the password, they will have access to view your project.

Tip

This is useful for when you have documentation you want users to bookmark. They can enter a URL directly and enter the password when prompted.

HTTP Authorization Header

Tip

This approach is useful for automated scripts. It only allows access to a page when the header is present, so it doesn’t allow browsing docs inside of a browser.

Token Authorization

You need to send the Authorization header with the token on each HTTP request. The header has the form Authorization: Token <ACCESS_TOKEN>. For example:

curl -H "Authorization: Token 19okmz5k0i6yk17jp70jlnv91v" https://docs.example.com/en/latest/example.html

Basic Authorization

You can also use basic authorization, with the token as user and an empty password. For example:

curl --url https://docs.example.com/en/latest/example.html --user '19okmz5k0i6yk17jp70jlnv91v:'