Legacy Knowledge Base
Published Sep. 10, 2025

Why I can see a document if I don't have permission in a parent folder and permissions inheritance is enabled?

Written By

Alejandro Zarza Roa

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Issue

  • In a portal with the structure Folder1 > Folder2 > Folder3 > Document and below permissions:

Folder1: Subscribe, View, Access
Folder2: No permissions
Folder3: Subscribe, View, Access
Document: View, Add comments

  • User can see the document using the URL, even if it's inside the Folder2 and permissions.view.dynamic.inheritance=true.

 

Environment

  • Liferay DXP 7.3

 

Resolution

The Access permission masks the permissions.view.dynamic.inheritance property and that this is an expected behavior of the product. To understand this, it is necessary to differentiate between the Access and View permissions:

  • The "Access" permission is intended to allow users to access the contents of a folder that they cannot view.
  •  The "Access" permission can be useful in a use case like the following:
    You want to share the URL of a file inside your private folder with another user without granting the 'View' permission to the entire folder. The user receiving the URL will be able to view the file but will not be able to view the rest of the folder's contents.
  • The View permission does not mask the permissions.view.dynamic.inheritance property, and, if it is set to true, it checks if the user has permission to all parent folders if any.

In this case, it happens because the Access permission is assigned to the parent folder (Folder3). Removing the Access permission to this folder should stop displaying the content, since the permissions.view.dynamic.inheritance property would be taking effect in the behavior of the portal.

 

Additional Information

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