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Shared Folder Permissions In Active Directory – You can use Group Policy to set access rights to directories or files for multiple computers. Not only do they save you the interactive configuration, but they also ensure that permissions don’t deviate from the defaults in the future.
Wolfgang Sommergut has over 20 years of experience in IT journalism. He also worked as a system administrator and as a technical consultant. Today he runs the German publication WindowsPro.de.
Shared Folder Permissions In Active Directory
For most directories installed by the operating system, there is usually no need to change permissions. Exceptions are vulnerabilities such as CVE-2021-36934 (“HiveNightmare”), where critical components such as the SAM database are not sufficiently protected due to misconfiguration of access rights.
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In this case, as a workaround, you can change the permissions to a protected state using a GPO on all affected computers. Another use case might be when you create a folder via Group Policy preferences and want to configure its access rights right away.
Another example would be that an application runs under a service account and the account needs access to certain data directories.
Because client-side extensions reapply GPO settings on each refresh, this ensures that the desired permissions are always maintained, for example for file shares with a deep folder structure. Manual changes will be corrected automatically.
After you have created the GPO and linked it to the desired OU or domain, open it in the GPO editor. There you switch to Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > File System. From the File System context menu, select Add File.
How To Use Powershell To Manage Folder Permissions
This opens a dialog box that can be used to navigate the file system on the administrator’s workstation. This is convenient if the target computers have the same folders. Otherwise, you can enter any path in the folder input field.
After selecting a directory or file, the Security dialog box appears (as you know it from the properties of a file system object in Explorer). Here, enter the required principals and assign them the desired permissions. Removing accounts or groups has the same effect on target systems.
If you open the advanced security settings by clicking Advanced, you can configure inheritance there. After confirming the new permissions, you also have the option to replace the existing permissions in all subfolders with inheritable permissions or, if the permissions were assigned directly there, leave them as they are.
Another option called Do not allow permissions for this file or folder to be overridden disables the transfer of permissions to subdirectories. In this case, you will likely configure a separate GPO setting for the subdirectory tree permissions.
How To Audit Shared Folder Access Changes
After rebooting the target computers or running gpupdate /force, the affected files or directories should get the new permissions. One of the most important security concepts is permission management: ensuring that the correct permissions are set with users – and that usually means knowing the difference between share and NTFS permissions. Share permissions and NTFS function completely separately from each other, but ultimately serve the same purpose: preventing unauthorized access. Get the free eBook Testing Active Directory Environments with a Pen However, when NTFS and share permissions interact, or when a shared folder is in a separate shared folder with different share permissions, users may not be able to access their data or may gain higher levels of access than security administrators intended. Here are the main differences between share permissions and NTFS so you know what to do. What is NTFS? A file system is a way of organizing a device, specifying how data is stored on the device and what types of information can be attached to files, such as permissions and file names. NTFS (NT File System) stands for New Technology File System (NTFS). NTFS is the latest file system that the Windows NT operating system uses to store and retrieve files. Before NTFS, the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system was the primary file system in older Microsoft operating systems and was designed for small drives and simple folder structures. The NTFS file system supports larger file and hard disk sizes and is more secure than FAT. Microsoft first introduced NTFS in 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1. It is the file system used in Microsoft’s Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT operating systems. NTFS Permissions NTFS permissions are used to control access to the files and folders that are stored on NTFS file systems. To see what kind of permissions you’ll extend when you share a file or folder: Right-click on the file/folder Go to Properties Click on the Security tab Everything you’ll then navigate in this window: Except for Full Control, Change and read permissions, which can be set for groups or individually, NTFS offers several more permission options: Full Control: Allows users to read, write, modify, and delete files and subfolders. Additionally, users can change the permission settings for all files and subdirectories. Change: Allows users to read and write files and subfolders; also allows to delete the folder. Read and execute: Allows users to view and execute executable files, including scripts. Folder Contents List: Allows viewing and listing files and subfolders, as well as executing files; inherited only from folders. Read: Allows users to view folder and subfolder contents. Write: Allows users to add files and subfolders, allows you to write to a file. If you’ve ever dealt with permission management in your organization, you’ll eventually come across “broken” permissions. Rest assured, they are fixable. Share permissions When you share a folder and want to set the permissions for that folder – that’s sharing. Essentially, share permissions determine the type of access that others have to the shared folder on the network. To see what kind of permissions you’ll extend when you share a folder: Right-click the folder Go to “Properties” Click the “Sharing” tab Click “Advanced Sharing…” Click “Permissions” And you’ll navigate to this window: There three types of sharing permissions: full control, change and read. Full Control: Allows users to ‘read’, ‘modify’ as well as edit permissions and take ownership of files. Modify: Modify means the user can read/execute/write/delete folders/files on the share. Read: Read allows users to view the contents of the folder. A warning about share permissions Sometimes when you have multiple shares on a server that are nested under one another, permissions can get complicated and confusing. For example, if you have a “Read” folder in a subfolder share permission, but then someone creates a “Change” share permission above it at a higher root, you may have people getting higher levels of access than you intended . There is a way around this which I will cover below. How to use share permissions and NTFS together One of the common questions that comes up when configuring security is “what happens when share permissions and NTFS interact with each other?” When you use share permissions and NTFS together, it wins the most restrictive permission. Consider the following examples: If the share permissions are “Read”, the NTFS permissions are “Full Control”, when a user accesses the file on the share, they will be given “Read” permission. If the share permissions are “Full Control”, the NTFS permissions are “Read”, when a user accesses the file on the share, they will still be given the “Read” permission. Managing NTFS permissions and share permissions If you find that working with two separate sets of permissions is too complicated or time-consuming to manage, you can switch to using only NTFS permissions. When you look at the examples above, with only three types of permission settings, shared folder permissions provide limited security for your folders. Therefore, you get the most flexibility by using NTFS permissions to control access to shared folders. Additionally, NTFS permissions apply whether the resource is accessed locally or over the network. To do this, change the sharing permissions for the folder to “Full Control”. You can then make whatever changes you want to NTFS permissions without worrying about share permissions interfering with your changes.
Below are three ways we can help you start your journey to reducing data risk in your company:
Michael has worked as a system administrator and software developer for startups in Silicon Valley, the US Navy, and everything in between. Compliance managers and auditors often ask IT administrators to provide a report that lists the file sharing permissions granted to a group or a specific user. Here are some paid and free tools that will help you save time generating these reports.
Cjwdev’s NTFS Permissions Reporter is a good tool that helps you export file and folder permissions. It shows group members (direct and nested) right in the report; in addition, you can choose the format of the report (tree or table), as well as highlight different permissions in different colors. The tool is highly customizable and quite easy to use, but the interface may seem a little overwhelming at first and scanning permissions may take extra time. The tool allows you to easily export report results to HTML
