Permissions Help

[plattze]

I'm hoping this is able to be done out-of-the-box.

How can you assign permissions to area's amd sub-area's of the main SharePoint site? I want this assignment linked in with Security groups in the Active Directory.


This is the basic site heirachy:

Main
+-- Coders
+-- Sub-Area1
+-- Sub-Area2
+-- QA
+-- Sub-Area1
+-- Sub-Area2
+-- IT
+-- Sub-Area1
+-- Sub-Area2



"Coders", "QA" and "IT" are generic sites which everyone can view and contain the public docs. The sub-areas inside these will contain any private docs for that department.

How can I link get permissions working to they are tied in with Active Directory?

Do I have to create "Site Groups" whose members are the AD Security Group? Then go into each area/sub-area and make sure only that site group has any access into it?

Can someone please give me a basic example. I hope once I understand the permissions that I can expand on it, and let users in "coders" create entries in certain lists in the IT Area...

Thanks, I appreciate your time.