Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

436 Part V: Administration of Windows SharePoint Services
Creating Unique Permissions for a Subsite
When you create a subsite, you can choose whether to inherit the permissions from
the parent website or to create unique permissions for your subsite. (See Figure 16-24.)
Depending on your choice, you get one of the following results:
■ If you choose unique permissions, the default site groups are created (Guest,
Reader, Contributor, Web Designer) but are not populated. The Administrator
site group is also created, and the subsite creator is assigned to this site group.
You can add users to the subsite and assign them to site groups, and they will
have permissions only on your subsite, not on the parent website.
■ If you choose to inherit permissions, all the security from the parent website is
used for the subsite, with the exception of per-list permissions. If you add a
user to a list, the user is added to the parent website.
F16XR24
Figure 16-24 Subsite permissions
Switching to a Different Permissions Model
If you set up your subsite with unique permissions but find that you need to share
permissions with your parent website instead, you can switch to inherited permissions.
There are some drawbacks to making this switch, however, such as:
■ Switching from unique to inherited permissions is not reversible. The users and
site groups from your subsite are deleted when you switch to inherited, and
your subsite reverts to the permissions set for the parent website.
■ Items that have per-list permissions set lose those permissions. All lists revert to
the site-wide permissions.
You can also switch from using inherited permissions to using unique permissions.
In this case, the transition is simpler. The current permissions are duplicated
when you switch, and the link to the parent website’s permissions structure is broken.