Disappearing File Rights

[jcastillop]

Hi all,

Our users are reporting they cannot access files they should have rights to. It's happened a couple of times, and after investigating, we've found that one of two things is happening:
1) The trustees, and their permissions, defined for each file dissapear.
2) The rights do not disappear, however users with permissions cannot access the files.

In the past, we've solved the problem by restoring the permissions from backup, but we are obviously interested in knowing why it's happening, and putting a stop to it.

Here's the version output from the server it's happening on:

Novell Netware 5.1
Support Pack Revision 05
Server Version 5.00.10
NDS Verswion 8.83c

I've searched Novell knowledge bases, but to no avail, I'm hoping someone here has seen this, or something similar before.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[TheLad]

So you are defining the rights by file rather than directory? You're probably better off defining rights to directories rather than files as directory rights are a lot more reliable and your problem will most likely disappear if you do it this way.

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[jcastillop]

Directory permissions arent really an option: the directory in question is used by a specific department and they have created a series of sub directories, and then placed files in each of this sub directory.

Trustee rights have to be set on each file because different users have to have different permissions to each file.

From what you are saying, file rights are unreliable in Novell? -We havent had this problem with any other files on the network, just the files in these subdirectories.

 

[TheLad]

What different rights do you apply? Surely the only two would be either read/write or read only? Two NDS groups with rights assigned to each directory would suffice and it is a lot easier to manage than rights specifically on files which to me seems a nightmare to manage (ie two trustees instead of god knows how many). Then you can simply see who has access to what directory via the group membership rather than having to check file by file?

If you are worried about people with read/write access deleting the file, simply flag it delete inhibit?

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[jcastillop]

oh, I agree that it's a nightmare to manage, I'm just glad it's not me that has to manage the rights!

Actually, the only type of right is read, because they are pdf files.

The problem is that different people have access to different files in each directory.

 

[paleogryph]

Ever tried Samba?


>Think for yourself<
...or someone else will do it for you.

 

[marvhuffaker]

Why can't you just give them [r f ] rights in the directory? It sounds like you need to reorganize this file structure for easier management.

Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[jcastillop]

Hi all,

The users cannot be given R F rights to the directories, because all the directories contain files which different users have access to.

I agree that it's mayhem, but that's how that particular department chose to set their directories up. (Besides, we are soon going to implement a Document Management application based on Documentum which this documents will all be put into).

My job was simply to investigate the cause of the loss of the rights... and I think the answer is: file rights are not a very reliable option, at least in Novell (?)

 

[marvhuffaker]

File rights are very reliable on Novell. In general, they are not the best option on any platform. I believe this was already mentioned at least once.

I also believe that it is the IT persons responsibility to make sure the users do things to cause as little stress upon said IT person on a daily basis. This means make them change to conform to standards that are practical and make everybody's life easier..

Or here is another idea. Give everybody [R F] Rights to the directory, and then the people that need more rights, make them into a group called "MORERIGHTSUSERS" and give them [RWECMF]. Or use this approach on their subdirectories that you said they have created. Done deal, problem solved. Use some creativity and the power of Novell and you can make it happen.



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com