Skip to content

Share Permissions

A shared folder has two sets of permissions: the NTFS permissions on the folder itself, and the share permissions on the network share. Both apply, and the more restrictive one wins. Share permissions are the ones people forget.

See them

Get-SmbShare
Get-SmbShareAccess -Name Finance
Name    AccountName          AccessControlType AccessRight
----    -----------          ----------------- -----------
Finance Everyone             Allow             Full

GUI: folder → PropertiesSharingAdvanced SharingPermissions.

The three share rights

Right Allows
Full Control Everything, including changing permissions
Change Read, write, delete
Read Read only

Fix them

The common approach: set the share to a group with Change, and let NTFS permissions do the fine control.

Revoke-SmbShareAccess -Name Finance -AccountName Everyone -Force
Grant-SmbShareAccess -Name Finance -AccountName "CORP\Finance" -AccessRight Change -Force
Grant-SmbShareAccess -Name Finance -AccountName "Administrators" -AccessRight Full -Force

Remove shares that shouldn't exist

Covered in Shares. Anything not administrative ($) and not required by the README goes.

Verify

Get-SmbShare | Where Name -notlike "*$" | ForEach-Object { Get-SmbShareAccess -Name $_.Name }

No Everyone with Full or Change.

Example

The Finance share gives Everyone Full. NTFS on C:\Finance gives Users Modify. Together, any account on the network can change any Finance file. Fix both layers: share to Finance group with Change, NTFS to Finance group with Modify, Users removed from both.

Next

Registry and AD Permissions