If a user has access to multiple security groups, does TFS take the highest level group, or the lowest level group for access rights?
For example, if user John, belongs to the Read Group (can only read the source control but not edit) and then is added to the Developer Group (can read and edit source control) which group does TFS recognize?
Since he belongs to both groups can he still only Read since that is the lowest level or can he now edit since he is also part of the Developer Group and that is the highest level?
Permissions
It combines the permissions from all the users groups.
If the user is denied access to anything they still can't access it even if they are given access to it elsewhere.
If the user is given access to something in any group they will have access to it (unless of course something else denies them).
If there's no explicit allow or deny in any of the users groups, they will be denied access.
Access Levels
Access levels are done separately from group permissions - access can be set to limited, standard or full in the tfs 2012 admin area.
For TFS 2010 the only group that acted a bit weirdly was the work item only group, which afaik acted as a explicit deny on everything but editing your own work items. This functionality is replaced with access levels in tfs 2012.
Related
I've got a TFS server in which team projects exists. These team projects have area paths below them. These area paths represents projects of certain customers. We want to give customers access to their area path.
The problem is when we do that they automatically gain access to all other area paths withing that team project. Is there a way of limiting access so the customers can only see their area path and nothing else?
No such a feature to limit users in team project level with the area path set.
Area path only restricts the users on work items:
Area paths allow you to group work items by team, product, or feature
area. Whereas, iteration paths allow you to group work into sprints,
milestones, or other event-specific or time-related period. Both these
fields allow you to define a hierarchy of paths.
Please see About area and iteration paths (aka sprints) for details.
So, if you don't want to the users see the specific team projects, then you just need to remove the users from the related TFS groups.
If you just want to restrict the users on manage the sources/files or source control on specific Repository/branches, then you can create teams or groups and set the permission accordingly. Please see below articles for details:
Add teams and team members
Permissions and groups in VSTS and TFS
As mentioned in this thread, by design a team can access other teams backlogs and work items.
To deny different teams access to other teams work items I used a workaround which might work for you as well.
The workaround is to use TFS security groups to limit teams access to area paths. By default, every team is created as a member of the default security group [project]\Contributors which gives the team access to all area paths.
Here are the steps I followed:
Create a new security group for every team
Make the new groups members of the Contributors default group
Add every team as a member of its new respective security group
Remove all teams from the Contributors group
In the project's areas admin screen, open each area's context menu and click the security option (check this article)
In the security view, add the newly created security groups
For each group, allow/deny the permissions based on your requirements
Please note, this workaround will not hide other area paths from the users in the not allowed groups. They still can navigate to backlogs of other groups but they will not view or edit the work items. This behavior is same for reports and dashboards as well
I am using TFS 2015. I make one user as Readers in project settings but still the user is able to create and update work-items/bugs. So, I am confused what I need to do in order to allow a user to just view the work-items/quires/stories but not add/edit any item.
The Readers group setting does not restrict ability to edit or create work items. You can do that in area path security settings Set permissions and access for work tracking. So you may create new group (in example Disallow Access Group). Then open security setting for the root area.
Deny needed permissions
In your case you have to enable View work items in this node
If you have the user only in the Readers TFS group of the given team project, the user will not be able to able to add/edit work items.
This can happen if you have altered the group membership, so that Readers are member of the Team (the team created by default or a new team), which is default a member of Contributors. This way readers TFS Group get inherited from Contributors permissions.
Verify the Readers group has below as permissions (default)
and it is not something like below
The other possibility is your user has collection level permissions so the project permissions are inherited to allow by default.
Background
I'm working on implementing Agile permissions along with Code permissions for a TFS project. There will be multiple teams in this project, we currently have 3 but will grow. I am set up with Project Admin rights.
Area Permissions
At the root TFS Area Project Admins have the ability to create, delete and edit this node rights. Team members do not.
Problem
When I add my self to one of the teams groups I'm no longer able to delete items from this node even though I am a Project Admin. That means I can never be a part of the teams? This will hurt me in capacity planning amongst other areas where I work on tasks when not administrating the project.
Am I missing something? Is there a setting to allow Most Privileged or something that allows me to be a team member and still perform administration of the project?
Don't use explicit Deny permissions -- an explicit Deny overrides explicit Allows. "Not Set" is what you're looking to use -- that means "deny, unless otherwise allowed".
The problem is that "Deny" will override any other permissions. Deny always wins.
you can do 2 things
Remove ADMIN from the team group. An admin account shouldn't need to
be a member of a contributors group as admin is a superset of the
permissions given to contributors.
If for some reason you cannot remove the account from this group then
change the permissions. TFS permissions have 3 states. Allow, not set, Deny.
As the deny is causing the issue, then change the
permissions to "not set" this will still prevent members of the
contributors group from being able to manage permissions, but will
stop overriding the admin users permissions
I have assigned permissions to users on Group Level in TFS. I have a user who is assigned on more than one group and is allowed to check-in code in both groups. I want to allow user to check-in code changes in Group A but not in Group B.
I will be thankful to you if you can guide me how i can do this.
Regards,
No, we cannot achieve that.
In general you should try to avoid having users in multiple groups as in TFS deny always wins.
That means if you set check in as Deny for Group B, then all the users in Group B will not be able to check in changes even though the user in other groups have the Allow permission.
Permissions
It combines the permissions from all the users groups.
If the user is denied access to anything they still can't access it
even if they are given access to it elsewhere.
If the user is given access to something in any group they will have
access to it (unless of course something else denies them).
If there's no explicit allow or deny in any of the users groups, they
will be denied access.
I think that people in GroupA work in part of source control and GropB in another. If so You have to enable check-in policies in both groups and instead configure source countrol foder or branch security policies in order to anable or not chech-in or even other features on any group.
To do that:
Go in source control explorer
Rigth click on folder or branch: Advanced->Security
Enjoy!
I want to make a TFS 2010 project read-only so users can view the info in work items but not add any details or new work items. I think I need to change the security permission on the project but it's not clear which permission I would change from the Contributors list.
In my opinion the right way is to alter the group memberships.
Remove all users from the constributors and higher groups and move them to the Readers group.
Two choices.
Choice 1: If this is a common pattern where the prevailing default is that folks are restricted, but some people have access (i.e. devs cannot change things but Tech Leads can), modify contributors and create a secondary group (for example, 'Tech Leads') that has the additional read rights. In this scenario, the Contributors group would contain tech leads, but only specific individuals with the extra rights would be in the Tech Leads group.
Choice 2: If the prevailing default is normal contributor access, but specific individuals (i.e. external contractors) need to be denied access, and you need to be 100% sure this goes through, regardless of any other group membership, then leave Contributors as is, and add a new group called (in this example) 'Contractors' and DENY specific access as needed.
Like before, everyone is a contrib, but contractors have some absolute limitations imposed on them, and the 'DENY' in the Contractors group overrides the 'Allow' from contrib. A use case for this would be cases where specific code has to be hidden from external vendors or some other sub-group and needs to be 100% rock solid - just be careful with denies as they will trump any number of allows you inherit from other groups.
Hope that helps!
Addendum: For restricting or changing rights on workitems, you need to do two things. First, set up appropriate group mempership (noted above), then in the project, under Team Project Settings -> Areas and Iterations, click the Security button to set this up on a node by node basis (or at the root if you want to do these restrictions project wide).