dear sir/madam

i dont know how to begin but here i try;
we have a pasty file server which users acess from window machines using samba. All users have access to main folder called MasterFolder.
The read/write/exec access to folders withing this MasterFolder is controlled by groups, so a user can only write to a folder if they are member of that group.
We have a folder called folderA and its group owner is GroupA. When 2 users(user a and user b)are members of GroupA this gives them write access to that folder. Now when user a creates a folder inside folderA the write permissions on that newly created sub folder becomes the user A's group name. Hence the other member of folderA, users b, cannot write to that newly created sub folder created by users a.
my question is is there a way where either users(both members of GroupA, which is the group owner of folderA) can write subfolders and makes changes to one anothers sub folders?
any help will be appreciate
sorry if not clear enough but im getting there...

You need the set group ID bit on the parent directory.

# chmod g+s MasterFolder

If you had set that up initially, it would work. Now you will have to go down through the contents and fix things. You can use chgrp to reset the group on files and subdirectories, and you can use the `chmod g+s` to set the set group ID bit on subdirectories. What it does is causes anything created within to get the group of the MasterFolder as well as its own sgid bit if it is a directory.

Have a look at the SAMBA documentation. What you want to set is the 'create mask' and 'directory mask' for the relevant shares.

hi guys
thanks very much for prompt reply...ichoogendyk i tried setting the group id g+ws MasterFolder and it worked fine... really appreciate it...thnx

beadyallen has also given a good point (gee, didn't I just say that in another thread?) that I neglected. In your smb.conf file, you should have the directory mask set to 2770 or 2775. The leading 2 is the set group ID bit. It's actually the reverse of what a umask would be. It is the bits you want to force on as opposed to the bits you want to mask out. It will tell you in the documentation built into the smb.conf file.

dear choogendyk and beadyallen. thnx for this. to be honest im not very familiar with samba, or linux for that matter. i wasnt sure if beadyallen's post applied to me as the way my smb.conf is setup is that the MasterFolder folder, which i have been talikng about in this thread is actually inside another folder called CCLS and it is this folder that is mounted in in the smb.conf file. this folder contains other data apart from MasterFolder where group members are only allow to view and not write in. the main concern was the MasterFolder which SOME users can write inside and SOME only view.
The post by beadyallen suggests apply the persmission to the main ccls folder, which will then give rights to WRITE to anything inside the CCLS folder. not sure if im making sence....