Using ICACLS to Grant Permissions on Folders

It took me a little while to work this out because I found the documentation here a little confusing and multiple interpretations of it seem to be floating around the net.

My goal was to grant a group permissions to access a folder, modify the subfolders and files within it, but not have the ability to modify the folder itself in any way. A pretty common requirement right? You would think some administrator somewhere would have come up with a clear set of instructions on how to do it, but I couldn't find any definitive answer that did quite what I wanted. Eventually, I figured out what I was doing wrong and scripted it myself.

So, the answer is:

icacls "Folder Path" /grant:r "AuthenticationRealm\GroupOrUser":(OI)(CI)(IO)(D,RC,S,AS,GR,GW,GE,RD,WD,AD,REA,WEA,X,DC,RA)

icacls "Folder Path" /grant "AuthenticationRealm\GroupOrUser":(RC,S,AS,GR,GE,RD,WD,AD,REA,X,DC,RA)

The first command replaces [/grant:r] any existing permissions for the GroupOrUser on all Subfolders and files only of the Folder Path and all of it's contents that inherit [(OI)(CI)(IO)] without forcing inheritance, and grants everything except Change permissions and Take ownership rights.

The second command grants GroupOrUser permissions to the Folder Path itself, but grants only those permissions that allow the GroupOrUser to be able to create files/folders and write data. They are not able to delete or modify the folder.

The permissions list in the first command can be modified to give Read Only access or Write Only (Dropbox) style access. If you're doing dropbox style access, it's sometimes a good idea to give the special identity CREATOR OWNER extra permissions so that submitters can modify their own work and it can also be a good idea to use Access-based Enumeration so that submitters cannot see other users submissions that may be in the same share.

There's probably a better way to do this in Powershell, but I haven't discovered it yet.