Manage users and groups

There are three types of users based on their permissions:

• Super-users. A special user account used for system administration. Super-user has full privileges.
• Power-users. A special user account which is allowed to utilize the most of advanced featured. Power-user permissions are configurable.
• Sub-user. A special user account with restricted permissions. Sub-user permissions are configurable and are in bounds of Power-user permissions.

With Server Backup Manager, you can manage all types of users and assign permissions for browsing, backup, and restore. The permissions are described further.

If you attempt to create a user account and do not see options to create different user types, you must enable the associated functionality. For more information about enabling this feature, see Configure Product Features.

The following table describes the major actions over users.

User Types

Super-users

A super-user has complete control over Server Backup Manager and can access and configure anything within the product. You cannot change the permissions of this type of user account.

Most organizations provide super-user accounts to authorized, experienced individuals.

Super-users and users/groups

The super-user creates power-users and sub-users, and then grants those accounts the permissions needed to use the various resources in Server Backup Manager.

All the users and groups in the server are visible for super-users.

Do not treat the super-users as power-users because you cannot add super-users to groups nor can you assign permissions to super-users on the servers or volumes. Also note that super-users cannot administrate sub-users.

Super-users and volumes/disk safes

Super-users can create, edit, delete, and import volumes. Only super-users can remove a disk safe.

Super-users and servers

Only a super-user can change the owner of a server.

Power-users

Power-users and users/groups

Power-users can create and administrate sub-users. Power-users also cannot assign permissions to their sub-users if they do not have these permissions themselves. 

A power-user can see only those groups to which the power-user belongs and only those sub-users that the power-user owns. The number of sub-users assigned to a power-user is unlimited if it is not restricted in the power-user Settings, as shown in the following image.

Power-users and volumes/Disk Safes

Power-users or groups can have the following permissions on volumes:

• Create Disk Safes in the volume
• Close Disk Safes in the volume
• Delete Disk Safes in the volume
• Change a Disk Safe's server assignment
• Change a Disk Safe's quota

Power-users can see but not edit any volumes on which they have permission. Note that the path of the volume is hidden.

Sub-users and power-users do not need volume permissions to restore or browse files, or edit disk safe settings.

Power-users and servers

You can allow power-users to create and administrate servers based on the selection shown in the following image.

You can set a power-user as the owner of a server. By default, a power-user that creates a server is an owner.

The owner has a full configurable set of the server permissions. A power-user can have the following permissions on the server based on the selections in the User properties window:

• Edit Server
• Edit Policies
• Edit Server's Users
• Edit Disk Safe:
  • Change name and description of the Disk Safe
  • Change Compression Type
  • Edit Devices and Device Settings
  • Change Encryption Passphrase
  • Manage Recovery Points (Merge Recovery Points and Lock/Unlock Recovery Points)

Power-users and restore

A power-user can have the following restore permissions based on the selections in the User properties window:

• Browse Server Recovery Points (read-only)
• Download Files (force checks browse files)
• Restore Files (force checks browse files)
• Bare-Metal Restore
• Control Panel Restore (force checks browse files)
• MySQL Restore
• SQL Restore
• Exchange Restore

Sub-users

Sub-users can have only one administrator or owner. You cannot create sub-users with multiple administrators.

Only a power-user can be an owner of a sub-user.

Sub-users cannot have permissions that their power-user owners do not have.

Groups and other users are not visible for sub-users.

Groups

A group contains a collection of power-users to which you can apply permissions. You can grant permission to a group in the same way as granting permissions to a power-user. Power-users can belong to more than one group.

Only power-users can be members of groups.

A power-user's permissions include their user-level permissions plus all of their group permissions.

If a group is not granted any permissions, but a specific power-user in that group has permissions, then the power-user still has these permissions.

If a group is granted full-control access on a server, but a specific power-user in that group has permissions set on that server that are less than full-control, then the group permissions are used.

If a power-user belongs to multiple groups, and two or more of those groups have permissions set on the same resource, such as a server, then the most liberal group-level permissions are applied. If one group has less than full-control access, but another group has full-control, the power-user is granted full-control access.