New Free Tool from SolarWinds Analyzes Permissions

I’m a sucker for a great free tool, and in fact, you should be sure to keep watching this space for an ongoing series I plan to begin that will highlight popular free/open source tools available for the IT pro.

On that note, I received some interesting news from SolarWinds about a new tool called Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory. Designed with feedback from SolarWinds’ systems administrator customers (I love companies that maintain this kind of communication with its customers), Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory gives users a quick and easy solution to help answer the question, “Who has the permission to do what?”

Considering today’s virtual deployments and even dispersed workforces, it can be hard to keep tabs on which admins have the rights to what. According to SolarWinds, “Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory is a valuable time-saver for sys admins, eliminating the hunt-and-peck routine of having to sort through extensive sets of user and group permissions. The tool provides a complete hierarchical view of the effective permissions and access rights for a specific file folder or share drive from the convenience of a real-time, desktop dashboard.”

Here are some highlights of the tool:

—Get a complete hierarchical view of the effective permissions and access rights for a specific file folder (NTFS) or share drive

—Easily see what permissions a user has for an object and why (group membership or direct permissions)

—See it all from a desktop dashboard

—Browse permissions by group or individual user

—Analyze user permissions based on group membership combined with specific permissions

 “It’s always been a time-consuming task to keep track of effective group and user permissions,” says Josh Stephens, SolarWinds’ head geek and VP of technology. “But with environments virtualizing, moving to the cloud and/or going through a data center consolidation, it’s never been more important to know who has the rights to what.”

 SolarWinds Permissions Analyzer for Active Directory is free and available on the SolarWinds website.