SharePoint - root web app site collection lock status

Hi all,

We have a SharePoint 2010 farm where all sites in one of our web applications was returning HTTP 403. We checked IIS, the folder system, database, etc trying to find the problem but had no luck. Later, upon checking Central Administration, we discovered that the root site collection for the web application was set to "No Access", via Central Administration > Site Collection Quotas and Locks. We set it to "Not Locked" and then all of the site collections were accessible again.

I was unaware of this, but wanted to confirm: does setting the web app's root site collection "no access" automatically lock all of the site collections hosted within it? That seems counter-intuitive.

Thanks for your help!

Kevin Worthington