diff --git a/apps/common/conf/settings.py b/apps/common/conf/settings.py
index 14640aeb2e..3372111a51 100644
--- a/apps/common/conf/settings.py
+++ b/apps/common/conf/settings.py
@@ -64,3 +64,12 @@ register_setting(
     default=u'username',
     description=_(u'Controls the mechanism used to authenticated user.  Options are: username, email'),
 )
+
+register_setting(
+    namespace=u'common',
+    module=u'common.conf.settings',
+    name=u'ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS',
+    global_name=u'COMMON_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS',
+    default=False,
+    description=_(u'Allows non authenticated users access to all views'),
+)
diff --git a/apps/common/middleware/login_required_middleware.py b/apps/common/middleware/login_required_middleware.py
index 91af7dc92f..94331d32aa 100644
--- a/apps/common/middleware/login_required_middleware.py
+++ b/apps/common/middleware/login_required_middleware.py
@@ -1,8 +1,12 @@
+from __future__ import absolute_import
+
 import re
 
 from django.http import HttpResponseRedirect
 from django.conf import settings
 
+from ..conf.settings import ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS
+
 EXEMPT_URLS = [re.compile(settings.LOGIN_URL.lstrip('/'))]
 if hasattr(settings, 'LOGIN_EXEMPT_URLS'):
     EXEMPT_URLS += [re.compile(expr) for expr in settings.LOGIN_EXEMPT_URLS]
@@ -20,13 +24,14 @@ class LoginRequiredMiddleware:
     """
 
     def process_request(self, request):
-        assert hasattr(request, 'user'), "The Login Required middleware\
- requires authentication middleware to be installed. Edit your\
- MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES setting to insert\
- 'django.contrib.auth.middlware.AuthenticationMiddleware'. If that doesn't\
- work, ensure your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS setting includes\
- 'django.core.context_processors.auth'."
-        if not request.user.is_authenticated():
-            path = request.path_info.lstrip('/')
-            if not any(m.match(path) for m in EXEMPT_URLS):
-                return HttpResponseRedirect(settings.LOGIN_URL)
+        if not ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS:
+            assert hasattr(request, 'user'), "The Login Required middleware\
+     requires authentication middleware to be installed. Edit your\
+     MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES setting to insert\
+     'django.contrib.auth.middlware.AuthenticationMiddleware'. If that doesn't\
+     work, ensure your TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS setting includes\
+     'django.core.context_processors.auth'."
+            if not request.user.is_authenticated():
+                path = request.path_info.lstrip('/')
+                if not any(m.match(path) for m in EXEMPT_URLS):
+                    return HttpResponseRedirect(settings.LOGIN_URL)
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index d06b77d2d2..89feffda1a 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 Version 0.12
 ------------
+* Added new configuration option COMMON_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS to allow
+  non authenticated access.
 * Statistics fixes
 * Italian translation by SeeOpen.IT (www.seeopen.it, info@seeopen.it)
 * Removed the 'db_index' argument from Text fields definition and 
diff --git a/docs/settings.rst b/docs/settings.rst
index 323bf84405..8d9b0237be 100644
--- a/docs/settings.rst
+++ b/docs/settings.rst
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ Job processor
     Default: ``None``  
     
     
-    Specified which job processing library to use, option are: None and celery.
+    Specifies which job processing library to use, option are: None and celery.
 
 
 Document indexing
@@ -230,12 +230,17 @@ OCR
 .. data:: OCR_TESSERACT_PATH    
     
     Default: ``/bin/tesseract``        
+
+    File path to the ``tesseract`` executable, used to perform OCR on document
+    page's images.
     
     
 .. data:: OCR_TESSERACT_LANGUAGE    
     
     Default: ``eng``           
-    
+
+    Language code passed to the ``tesseract`` executable.
+        
     
 .. data:: OCR_REPLICATION_DELAY    
     
@@ -256,7 +261,8 @@ OCR
     
     Default: ``False``               
     
-    Automatically queue newly created documents for OCR.
+    Automatically queue newly created documents or newly uploaded versions
+    of existing documents for OCR.
     
     
 .. data:: OCR_QUEUE_PROCESSING_INTERVAL    
@@ -277,7 +283,8 @@ OCR
     
     Default: ``/usr/bin/unpaper`` 
     
-    File path to unpaper program.
+    File path to the ``unpaper`` executable, used to clean up images before
+    doing OCR.
     
 
 Metadata
@@ -318,24 +325,39 @@ Common
 .. data:: COMMON_AUTO_CREATE_ADMIN    
     
     Default: ``True`` 
+
+    Automatically creates an administrator superuser with the username
+    specified by COMMON_AUTO_ADMIN_USERNAME and with the default password
+    specified by COMMON_AUTO_ADMIN_PASSWORD
     
     
 .. data:: COMMON_AUTO_ADMIN_USERNAME    
     
     Default: ``admin`` 
     
+    Username of the automatically created superuser
+    
     
 .. data:: COMMON_AUTO_ADMIN_PASSWORD    
     
     Default: ``admin`` 
-        
+
+    Default password of the automatically created superuser
+            
     
 .. data:: COMMON_LOGIN_METHOD    
     
     Default: ``username`` 
     
     Controls the mechanism used to authenticated user. Options are: ``username``, ``email``    
+
+
+.. data:: COMMON_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS
+
+    Default: ``False``
     
+    Allow non authenticated users, access to all views
+
     
 Search
 ------