Public Folder Permissions

Public folders, like most objects in Active Directory, have permissions that can be configured on them. Also like other objects in Active Directory, public folders inherit their permissions from their parent objects. A top-level public folder inherits its default permissions from the administrative group to which it belongs. Child folders inherit their permissions from the parent folder under which they are created. Unlike most other objects in Active Directory, public folders have a somewhat complex ‚ and confusing ‚ permissions structure.

Note ‚  

Changes that are made to the permissions on a public folder ‚ s parent object will not automatically be propagated down to that child object as with NTFS permissions. If you have changed the permissions on a parent object and you desire these changes to be propagated down to the child folder objects, you can do so manually. As you might expect, this action will cause any existing permissions on the child folder object to be overwritten by those being propagated from the parent object.

Public folders have three different sets of permissions that can be configured on them: client permissions, directory rights, and administrative rights. Permissions are configured from the Permissions tab of the public folder Properties dialog box, as seen in Figure 6.11. We ‚ ve already examined the client permissions in the ‚“Configuring Public Folders from Outlook ‚½ section of this chapter. We will examine the other two permission types here.

Figure 6.11: Public folders permissions

Directory Rights

Directory rights are used to configure the NTFS permissions that determine who can perform modifications on the public folder object that is stored in Active Directory. Clicking the Directory rights button on the Permissions tab opens the Permissions dialog box seen in Figure 6.12.

Figure 6.12: Configuring directory rights

In most cases, you will not need to change any of the default permissions that have been configured here.

Administrative Rights

Administrative rights allow you to assign NTFS permissions to users and groups that determine who is actually allowed to perform administrative tasks on the public folder. For example, you might have five administrators within your organization, but only two of them are to be allowed to configure and manage replication properties on specific public folders. Clicking the Administrative rights button on the Permissions tab opens the Permissions dialog box seen in Figure 6.13.

Figure 6.13: Configuring administrative rights

As mentioned previously, you may find any number of reasons to configure custom settings for the administrative rights on a public folder depending on the needs of your organization.