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Configuring Administrators across MOSS Farms and Sites

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This blog posting applies to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

I assembled the following table to organize pertinent details about the different places and ways that administrators can be configured.

Permissions

Where configured

May contain

Farm Administrators

Configure all servers in the server farm.

All tasks in Central Administration.

STSADM command-line operations.

No access to individual sites*

SharePoint Central Admin >> Operations >> Update Farm Administrators Group

Users and Groups

Server Administrators

All farm administrator actions.

No access to individual sites*

Windows >> Computer Management >> Local Users and Groups >> Groups >> Administrators

Users and Groups

*By default, Farm Admins and Server Admins do not have permissions to open/read sites. If necessary, they can take ownership of a site collection by adding themselves as a site collection administrator.

Site Collection Administrators

Full Control of all sites within a site collection.

SharePoint Central Admin >> Application Management >> Site Collection Administrators

or**

Site Actions [top level site]>> Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings>> Site Collection Administrators

Users (2)

Users (2+)

** Site collection administrators can be configured in two places. Via Central Admin, two users may be configured: a primary and a secondary. Via Site Actions for the top level site, additional users may be configured. Users added via Central Admin are added to Site Settings; a user removed from Site Settings is removed from Central Admin if present; must have at least one user specified.

Site Owners

Site Members

Site Visitors

Full Control of site.

Contribute to site.

Read site.

Site Actions [subsite]>> Site Settings > People and Groups

>> Settings > Set Up Groups

Users and Groups

SharePoint 2007 doesn't automatically create these last three groups for new subsites.

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