Get File Security Description

Problem : You want to retrieve security information for a file. Security descriptors can be attached to many types of objects, but some of the most common to deal with are files.

Solution: The System.Security namespace contains .NET classes related to security. The following code sample display security information about a file whose name is passed on the command line.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.AccessControl;
using System.Security.Principal;

namespace ShowFileSecurity
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (args.Length < 1)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Usage: ShowFileSecurity filename");
                return;
            }
            string filename = args[0];
            FileInfo info = new FileInfo(filename);
            FileSecurity security = info.GetAccessControl();
            ShowSecurity(security);
        }

        private static void ShowSecurity(FileSecurity security)
        {
            AuthorizationRuleCollection coll =
                security.GetAccessRules(true, true, typeof(NTAccount));
            foreach (FileSystemAccessRule rule in coll)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("IdentityReference: {0}",
                  rule.IdentityReference);
                Console.WriteLine("Access control type: {0}",
                  rule.AccessControlType);
                Console.WriteLine("Rights: {0}", rule.FileSystemRights);
                Console.WriteLine("Inherited? {0}", rule.IsInherited);

                Console.WriteLine();
            }
        }
    }
}

					    

You can run the program from the command line like this:

D:\code\ch11\ShowFileSecurity\bin\Debug>ShowFileSecurity.exe ShowFileSecurity.pdb

					    

It produces output similar to the following:

IdentityReference: Ben-Desktop\Ben
Access control type: Allow
Rights: FullControl
Inherited? True

IdentityReference: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Access control type: Allow
Rights: FullControl
Inherited? True
IdentityReference: BUILTIN\Administrators
Access control type: Allow
Rights: FullControl
Inherited? True