Question

Restricted Groups for Local Administrators not behaving as expected.

Asked by: HISOSU

I have a GPO that sets Administrators as a Restricted Group.  It makes a few different domain groups be members.  This works just fine.  It also adds a group called LocAd.  This is NOT a domain account, but exists on some user machines.

On the user machines that require it, we add the user's domain account to the local LocAd group.

When all GPOs are applied, the local Administrators group contains all of the proper groups.  The user's domain account stays in LocAd right where it should be.

In effect though, the user account in question gets admin rights to any local files that require it but NO admin abilities whatsoever for Windows itself (load/unload drivers, change the clock, etc...).

How exactly did Windows manage to determine that the user is a member of the right groups (evidenced by the ability to R/W admin only files), but then forget to give them the actual system rights?

I know there are other ways to go about this, but I'm curious why this method isn't working.  I'm using all Win2003 R2 SP2 DCs, all workstations are WinXP SP2.  Thanks for any insights!

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Asked On
2007-09-19 at 12:14:08ID22839648
Tags

groups

,

restricted

,

local

,

administrators

Topics

Windows 2003 Server

,

Windows XP Operating System

,

Active Directory

Participating Experts
4
Points
250
Comments
12

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Answers

 

by: The_Computer_Guru_777Posted on 2007-09-19 at 12:27:55ID: 19923646

So users in the group "LocAd" have Read and Write access to all files on the system, but they have no rights to perform administrator tasks (i.e. load drivers, install software, etc...). Is that correct????

 

by: hypercatPosted on 2007-09-19 at 12:33:24ID: 19923693

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question, but the LocAd group would have to be a member of the local Administrators group on the workstation to get all administrative rights. Is this what you are expecting to happen?  The LocAd group could be given any NTFS file rights necessary by editing those permissions.  This wouldn't affect the ability of members of that group to administor or not to administer services, etc., on the workstation. They would still have to be in the local Administrators group to get those rights.

 

by: HISOSUPosted on 2007-09-19 at 12:48:53ID: 19923800

I wasn't totally clear in my first paragraph...  When it adds the LocAd goup, it adds it TO the local Admins, it doesn't create it.

OK, looks like my memory was slightly off...  They DON'T have actual file access rights.  BUT, if you check the effective permissions for ANY folder or file on C:\, it THINKS they have rights.

 

by: KenneniahPosted on 2007-09-19 at 12:56:08ID: 19923862

"When it adds the LocAd goup, it adds it TO the local Admins, it doesn't create it"
So LocAd is a domain group?

 

by: HISOSUPosted on 2007-09-19 at 13:01:41ID: 19923919

Nope, it's a local group we create only on workstations that require their user to have admin access.
One it's created and you reboot the workstation, it magically becomes part of the local admin group.

 

by: KenneniahPosted on 2007-09-19 at 13:10:29ID: 19923987

Well that's probably part of the problem. It shouldn't be letting you do this, as local groups are not supposed to be able to be added to another local group.

 

by: RightNLPosted on 2007-09-19 at 13:35:10ID: 19924201

but it isn't a local group ... it's a local group from somewhere else..

the problem is that you are trying to mix workgroup solutions and network solutions... that doesn't work sowell..

try to solve this kind of stuff with only domain groups..

why not have a domain group that has users in it which is added to the local admins and than restrict stuff using gpo..

or better yet .. great a user group and give rights using GPO while not allowing it to be a local admin..

D.

 

by: HISOSUPosted on 2007-09-20 at 04:30:51ID: 19927402

The reason I was doing it this way (or at least trying to) is that I want to have the hard set Administrators membership.  We already have all end users just as users by default, there are just a few that, for whatever reason, need to have local admin rights to their own systems.  There aren't any domain groups for user admin rights because there are no users we want to give local admin rights to on EVERY computer.

Any particular reason they don't let you add local groups to local groups?  Just tried it on my own system...  Never even thought about not being able to do that part ;).  Must be something more to it not working than just a check when you try and add the group in the first place.

Is there a better way to be going about this that meets these goals?
1) A for certain local admin group membership with only the members I want it to have.
2) The ability to grant local admin rights to single users on single workstations.
3) Not do any of this by creating a separate GPO, OU, etc... for each and every case of a user needing this.

 

by: The_Computer_Guru_777Posted on 2007-09-21 at 18:26:11ID: 19940171

sounds like if you want to enable restricted groups you will have to add these special users as admins to all machines. Just don't let them know they have that power.

 

by: KenneniahPosted on 2007-09-22 at 14:51:16ID: 19942743

"Any particular reason they don't let you add local groups to local groups?"
Partially it's because what's the point? Basically this is adding users to a local group, then adding that group to another local group, when you could have just put the users in the group you wanted in the first place. It's kind of redundant. There's no point to it, just put them in the Administrators group if that's the power you want them to have.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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