ONTAP 9 Manuals ( CA08871-402 )

Local users are required in workgroup configurations.

Local users can authenticate with the SMB server by using NTLM authentication when the domain controller is down, or when network problems prevent your SMB server from contacting the domain controller.

User Rights Management is the ability for an SMB server administrator to control what rights the users and groups have on the SVM. You can assign privileges to a user by assigning the privileges to the user’s account, or by making the user a member of a local group that has those privileges.

Local groups are not required in workgroup configurations, but they can be useful for managing access privileges for local workgroup users.

Some built-in user groups have predefined privileges. To assign a customized set of privileges, you can create a local group and assign the necessary privileges to that group. You can then add local users, domain users, and domain groups to the local group.