Groups can be used with ACLs, administrative lists, and certain DFS commands. Using groups in each of these ways provides a convenient way to specify several individuals with one entry.
ACLs specify access permissions for the users and groups that can perform operations on files and directories. Rather than specify an ACL entry for each member of a project on all project files, you can set up a group in the Registry Database that includes all project members. You can then specify the group on the files' ACLs to provide all members the same access to the files.
Similarly, administrative lists specify the users and groups that can perform actions affecting specific server processes. Groups can be specified on the administrative list associated with each DFS server process. Often the same users need to be included on several administrative lists; these users can be specified as a group in the Registry Database and subsequently added to and removed from administrative lists as a group. For example, you can use a group to specify a system administration team whose members need access to most DFS servers. Then rather than modify all the administrative lists when the team membership changes, you can simply use the dcecp group command to modify the group in the Registry Database.
Groups can also be specified with options on certain DFS commands, including the fxd and fts crserverentry commands, to specify administrative users. Groups specified on the command lines of these commands differ from those specified with ACLs and administrative lists because only one group can be specified with these commands, but multiple groups can be specified with ACLs and administrative lists.