Regrouping the users
All the users are currently in a single group, "All users". To give different permissions
to different users, you need to set up new groups which contain the different sets
of users.
How these are organized depends on how you want your permissions to be assigned.
For example, if you wanted to give different levels of access to staff and customers,
you would create "Staff" and "Customer" groups and put each user in the appropriate
group.
Users can be put into more than one group if needed. However, if you want to give
the same permissions to two groups of users it is generally better if you leave
each user in only their most appropriate group and change the permissions to include
both groups. For example, if you have a newsgroup that you want to be able to be
accessed by both staff and customers, there is no need to put all your users together
in a single group again.
Setting up specific permissions
You will currently have a "Full access" permissions entry which gives read and write
access to all your newsgroups to every user. If you want to restrict access to specific
newsgroups, you will first need to delete this entry.
When assigning permissions, it is easiest if your newsgroups are named in a way
that can be mapped directly onto the permissions. For example, if you have certain
newsgroups that only staff should be able to access, it is easiest if all those
newsgroups have names beginning with "yourcompany.staff." or similar.
For each set of newsgroups you want to give different permissions to, create a new
permissions entry and add the appropriate groups to it. In the "Newsgroup permissions"
area, enter the pattern of newsgroups the permissions should apply to and select
either the "Read", "Post" or both permissions.
For example, to allow your customers read and write access to any newsgroups starting
with "yourcompany.public.", add the "Customers" group to the permission, enter "yourcompany.public.*"
as the newsgroups and select the "Read" and "Post" permissions.
Similarly, to give your staff read and write access to any newsgroups starting with
"yourcompany.staff.", add the "Staff" group to the permission, enter "yourcompany.staff.*"
as the newsgroups and select the "Read" and "Post" permissions.
To allow your customers read-only access to a newsgroup, but your staff read and
write access, you will need to create two permissions entries. This system is commonly
used to set up an announcements newsgroups. The first permission entry would include
the "Customers" group, have its newsgroups set to "yourcompany.announcements", and
would have the "Read" permission set. The second permission entry would include
the "Staff" group, have its newsgroups set to "yourcompany.announcements", and would
have the "Read" and "Post" permissions set.