limited access & web only limited access in share point online

Question

Hello,

I have a user who is having limited access to a site. I need to know where does this access was provided exactly.

By using site permissions > check permissions, I am not able to find. Is there any way that we can find either by GUI or PowerShell?

Answer 1

Hi @Surya kumar ,

There is currently no direct way to obtain this result, because the SharePoint permission list is for objects such as files or Items in SharePoint. When a user has unique permission for a certain file, the user will have limited access permission for the upper-level folder, library or even site that contains the file.

We can try to use the power shell script to obtain the permission report of a user in the site and get the answer from the report.

Here is the code for your reference:

#Load SharePoint CSOM Assemblies
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"
   
#Set parameter values
$SiteURL="https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/ops"
$UserAccount="i:0#.f|membership|Salaudeen@crescent.com"
$ReportFile="C:\Temp\PermissionRpt.csv"
$BatchSize = 500
  
#sharepoint online powershell to get user permissions Applied on a particular Object, such as: Web, List, Folder or Item
Function Get-Permissions([Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SecurableObject]$Object)
{
    #Determine the type of the object
    Switch($Object.TypedObject.ToString())
    {
        "Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Web"  { $ObjectType = "Site" ; $ObjectURL = $Object.URL }
        "Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListItem"
        {
            $ObjectType = "List Item/Folder"
  
            #Get the URL of the List Item
            $Object.ParentList.Retrieve("DefaultDisplayFormUrl")
            $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
            $DefaultDisplayFormUrl = $Object.ParentList.DefaultDisplayFormUrl
            $ObjectURL = $("{0}{1}?ID={2}" -f $Ctx.Web.Url.Replace($Ctx.Web.ServerRelativeUrl,''), $DefaultDisplayFormUrl,$Object.ID)
        }
        Default
        {
            $ObjectType = "List/Library"
            #Get the URL of the List or Library
            $Ctx.Load($Object.RootFolder)
            $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()           
            $ObjectURL = $("{0}{1}" -f $Ctx.Web.Url.Replace($Ctx.Web.ServerRelativeUrl,''), $Object.RootFolder.ServerRelativeUrl)
        }
    }
  
    #Get permissions assigned to the object
    $Ctx.Load($Object.RoleAssignments)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
    Foreach($RoleAssignment in $Object.RoleAssignments)
    {
                $Ctx.Load($RoleAssignment.Member)
                $Ctx.executeQuery()
  
                #Check direct permissions
                if($RoleAssignment.Member.PrincipalType -eq "User")
                {
                    #Is the current user is the user we search for?
                    if($RoleAssignment.Member.LoginName -eq $SearchUser.LoginName)
                    {
                        Write-Host  -f Cyan "Found the User under direct permissions of the $($ObjectType) at $($ObjectURL)"
                          
                        #Get the Permissions assigned to user
                        $UserPermissions=@()
                        $Ctx.Load($RoleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings)
                        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
                        foreach ($RoleDefinition in $RoleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings)
                        {
                            $UserPermissions += $RoleDefinition.Name +";"
                        }
                        #Send the Data to Report file
                        "$($ObjectURL) `t $($ObjectType) `t $($Object.Title)`t Direct Permission `t $($UserPermissions)" | Out-File $ReportFile -Append
                    }
                }
                  
                Elseif($RoleAssignment.Member.PrincipalType -eq "SharePointGroup")
                {
                        #Search inside SharePoint Groups and check if the user is member of that group
                        $Group= $Web.SiteGroups.GetByName($RoleAssignment.Member.LoginName)
                        $GroupUsers=$Group.Users
                        $Ctx.Load($GroupUsers)
                        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
                        #Check if user is member of the group
                        Foreach($User in $GroupUsers)
                        {
                            #Check if the search users is member of the group
                            if($user.LoginName -eq $SearchUser.LoginName)
                            {
                                Write-Host -f Cyan "Found the User under Member of the Group '$($RoleAssignment.Member.LoginName)' on $($ObjectType) at $($ObjectURL)"
  
                                #Get the Group's Permissions on site
                                $GroupPermissions=@()
                                $Ctx.Load($RoleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings)
                                $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
                                Foreach ($RoleDefinition  in $RoleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings)
                                {
                                    $GroupPermissions += $RoleDefinition.Name +";"
                                }         
                                #Send the Data to Report file
                                "$($ObjectURL) `t $($ObjectType) `t $($Object.Title)`t Member of '$($RoleAssignment.Member.LoginName)' Group `t $($GroupPermissions)" | Out-File $ReportFile -Append
                            }
                        }
                }
            }
}
 
Try {
    #Get Credentials to connect
    $Cred= Get-Credential
    $Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.Username, $Cred.Password)
   
    #Setup the context
    $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SiteURL)
    $Ctx.Credentials = $Credentials
  
    #Get the Web
    $Web = $Ctx.Web
    $Ctx.Load($Web)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
    #Get the User object
    $SearchUser = $Web.EnsureUser($UserAccount)
    $Ctx.Load($SearchUser)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
    #Write CSV- TAB Separated File) Header
    "URL `t Object `t Title `t PermissionType `t Permissions" | out-file $ReportFile
  
    Write-host -f Yellow "Searching in the Site Collection Administrators Group..."
    #Check if Site Collection Admin
    If($SearchUser.IsSiteAdmin -eq $True)
    {
        Write-host -f Cyan "Found the User under Site Collection Administrators Group!"
        #Send the Data to report file
        "$($Web.URL) `t Site Collection `t $($Web.Title)`t Site Collection Administrator `t Site Collection Administrator" | Out-File $ReportFile -Append
    }
  
  
    #Function to Check Permissions of All List Items of a given List
    Function Check-SPOListItemsPermission([Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.List]$List)
    {
        Write-host -f Yellow "Searching in List Items of the List '$($List.Title)..."
  
        $Query = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.CamlQuery
        $Query.ViewXml = "<View Scope='RecursiveAll'><Query><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='ID' Ascending='TRUE'/></OrderBy></Query><RowLimit Paged='TRUE'>$BatchSize</RowLimit></View>"
 
        $Counter = 0
        #Batch process list items - to mitigate list threshold issue on larger lists
        Do { 
            #Get items from the list in Batch
            $ListItems = $List.GetItems($Query)
            $Ctx.Load($ListItems)
            $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
           
            $Query.ListItemCollectionPosition = $ListItems.ListItemCollectionPosition
            #Loop through each List item
            ForEach($ListItem in $ListItems)
            {
                $ListItem.Retrieve("HasUniqueRoleAssignments")
                $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
                if ($ListItem.HasUniqueRoleAssignments -eq $true)
                {
                    #Call the function to generate Permission report
                    Get-Permissions -Object $ListItem
                }
                $Counter++
                Write-Progress -PercentComplete ($Counter / ($List.ItemCount) * 100) -Activity "Processing Items $Counter of $($List.ItemCount)" -Status "Searching Unique Permissions in List Items of '$($List.Title)'"
            }
        } While ($Query.ListItemCollectionPosition -ne $null)
    }
  
    #Function to Check Permissions of all lists from the web
    Function Check-SPOListPermission([Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Web]$Web)
    {
        #Get All Lists from the web
        $Lists = $Web.Lists
        $Ctx.Load($Lists)
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
        #Get all lists from the web  
        ForEach($List in $Lists)
        {
            #Exclude System Lists
            If($List.Hidden -eq $False)
            {
                #Get List Items Permissions
                Check-SPOListItemsPermission $List
  
                #Get the Lists with Unique permission
                $List.Retrieve("HasUniqueRoleAssignments")
                $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
                If( $List.HasUniqueRoleAssignments -eq $True)
                {
                    #Call the function to check permissions
                    Get-Permissions -Object $List
                }
            }
        }
    }
  
    #Function to Check Webs's Permissions from given URL
    Function Check-SPOWebPermission([Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Web]$Web)
    {
        #Get all immediate subsites of the site
        $Ctx.Load($web.Webs) 
        $Ctx.executeQuery()
   
        #Call the function to Get Lists of the web
        Write-host -f Yellow "Searching in the Web "$Web.URL"..."
  
        #Check if the Web has unique permissions
        $Web.Retrieve("HasUniqueRoleAssignments")
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
  
        #Get the Web's Permissions
        If($web.HasUniqueRoleAssignments -eq $true)
        {
            Get-Permissions -Object $Web
        }
  
        #Scan Lists with Unique Permissions
        Write-host -f Yellow "Searching in the Lists and Libraries of "$Web.URL"..."
        Check-SPOListPermission($Web)
   
        #Iterate through each subsite in the current web
        Foreach ($Subweb in $web.Webs)
        {
                #Call the function recursively                           
                Check-SPOWebPermission($SubWeb)
        }
    }
  
    #Call the function with RootWeb to get site collection permissions
    Check-SPOWebPermission $Web
  
    Write-host -f Green "User Permission Report Generated Successfully!"
    }
Catch {
    write-host -f Red "Error Generating User Permission Report!" $_.Exception.Message
}

Reference:

https://www.sharepointdiary.com/2018/09/sharepoint-online-get-user-permission-report-using-powershell.html

Hope this can help.

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Answer 2

Hi @Surya kumar ,

Please go through the permissions article.

It explains Limited Access as Enables a user or group to browse to a site page or library to access a specific content item when they do not have permissions to open or edit any other items in the site or library. This level is automatically assigned by SharePoint when you provide access to one specific item. You cannot assign Limited Access permissions directly to a user or group yourself. Instead, when you assign edit or open permissions to the single item, SharePoint automatically assigns Limited Access to other required locations, such as the site or library in which the single item is located. This allows SharePoint to render the user interface correctly and show the user some context around their location in the site. Limited Access does not grant any additional permissions to the user, so they can't see or access any other content.

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