Powershell 3.0 - Add Group/Username and Enable Full Control permissions

Just a word on the other permission levels.

Get-Acl and Set-Acl do very little for us here, they provide access to the ACL, nothing more. The FileSystemAccessRule is being given strict values.

The access rule is a .NET class: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemaccessrule(v=vs.110).aspx

It has strictly defined values.

$accessRule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule(
    'Everyone',    # An identity (domain\user), or a well known principal (like Everyone)
    'FullControl',    # Access rights
    'ObjectInherit,ContainerInherit',    # Inheritance flags
    'None',    # Propagation flags
    'Allow'    # Type
)

Select all Open in new window

Each of these has an associate list of constants:

Access rights: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemrights(v=vs.110).aspx
Inheritance flags: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.inheritanceflags(v=vs.110).aspx
Propagation flags: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.propagationflags(v=vs.110).aspx
Type: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w4ds5h86(v=vs.110).aspx

FullControl is a very broad permission, an easy one to grant.

If you wanted to grant Read only (ReadAndExecute) or Modify you would need to combine those rights with Synchronize. This allows them to appear properly without clicking on the Advanced button in folder properties. For example, this grants the Modify right:

$accessRule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule(
    'Everyone',
    'ReadAndExecute,Synchronize',
    'ObjectInherit,ContainerInherit',
    'None',
    'Allow'
)

Select all Open in new window

You can be as granular as you wish with the rights. It can always be written as a comma delimited list as above. PowerShell converts that into numeric values in the background.

These values can be modified such that you can build any possible right you might assign in the GUI.