Synology Drive Admin Console
Synology Drive Admin Console is a package automatically installed along with the installation of Synology Drive Server. It is designed to centralize sync settings for administrators to better monitor business properties and resources stored/shared on Drive, a service that allows you to synchronize files between a centralized Synology NAS and multiple client computers, mobiles and other Synology NAS devices. To seamlessly sync data among users' different devices, a Synology NAS has to be chosen as the host server, and the rest of the paired computers, mobiles and Synology NAS devices will act as the clients. Before syncing files with client devices, Drive Server is required to be installed on the host server, while a desktop application has to be installed on each client device you would like to sync with.
Note:
- Only users in DSM administrator's group will be able to view Drive Admin Console.
- Desktop applications must be installed on client computers before syncing files between Synology NAS and your local computers. For file syncing, go to Synology Download Center and download Synology Drive Client desktop application.
- Synology Drive mobile apps must be installed in order for you to browse files on Drive server with your mobile devices. The Drive app (iOS/Android) can be downloaded for free from iOS App Store and Android Play Store.
Managing Client Connections
Client list allows you to see a list of client devices that have been set up to sync files with your Synology NAS using the Drive service. You can see the clients' computer names, the device names used for service authorization, IP addresses and syncing status between Synology NAS and the clients.
To manage client connections, do any of the following:
- Click Refresh to update the list.
- Select a client on the list, and then click Unlink to stop the client's connection.
Note:
- Unlinked clients will need to reconfigure its connection to Drive Admin Console before they can sync to your Synology NAS again.
- Users with non-administrators can manage their own connections in this tab as well.
Managing Drive Admin Console Files with File Station
Drive files are saved in your home/Drive folder or Team Folders that have Drive sharing. You can browse and download Drive files (or their previous versions) with File Station or view historical versions.
To manage Drive files:
- Go to File Station, and then browse to home/Drive or shared folders.
- Right-click on the file, and then choose Browse previous versions. Here you can see and download the previous versions of the file.
Note:
Only users with administrative privileges can only manage Drive files in shared folders. Other users can only browse the versions of files they have privileges to.
Managing Files in Drive with Version Explorer
Version Explorer allows administrators to view and manage previous versions of modified or deleted files in synced folders. Administrators can view the history of data by selecting specific a date and time, allowing you to restore data to a point in time altogether.
To manage the historical versions of all the files in Drive:
Version Explorer in Drive Admin Console enables administrators to trace back to previous versions of files and folders under users' My Drive as well as Team Folder on Drive.
- In Overview, click Version Explorer to launch Version Explorer.
- You can browse files from different users' My Drive folders or Team Folder at different historical points by selecting a specific date and time.
- Click the username right after View role to switch viewing identity.
- Tick the Show deleted files checkbox to make deleted files visible in Version Explorer.
- Choose a file or a folder, and click any of the following buttons:
- Download: Download this file or folder.
- Restore: Recover this file or folder to a specified time .
- Browse previous versions: View, download or restore previous versions of this chosen file or folder.
- You can do more by clicking More and choose any of the following from the drop-down menu:
- Copy to...: Recover this file or folder to the specified time, and copy the result to a selected folder.
- Delete permanently: Delete this file from the version history. Please note that the file will be permanently removed and cannot be recovered.
Note:
- When encrypted Synology Office files are chosen, passwords are required before any file manipulation.
- When copying Synology Office files to non-Drive covered destinations or downloading Synology Office files, the files will be automatically converted into corresponding Microsoft Office file formats for access availability.
Log
The Log allows you to keep track of what actions have been performed by users within a certain length of time. You can view the log in its entirety with all events or you can view events in relation to different folders, which can be selected from the drop down menu at the top.
To search through the log with a specific filter:
- Click the arrow in the search bar on the top right hand corner.
- In the drop down menu, you can filter events by:
- Keyword: enter the name of any user to find events related to the user.
- Date Range: choose from Today, Yesterday, Last week, or Last month or Customize to enter a start and end date to find logs within a specific range.
- Type: in the drop down menu you can select the type of event you want to view. You can also select Customize to select several different types of events at once.
- To reset your filtered log, click the Reset button and then Search again.
Note:
File and folder names are hyperlinks if the file or folder still exists in the Drive Admin Console database. Click to find them in File Station. You can also double-click on the activity entry to open the version history of a single file.
To export logs:
- Open the All Events drop-down menu and select a shared folder from which you would like to export logs. Click the Export button, and the logs will be exported as a CSV file1.
- Exported logs are organized into several categories and actions. Please refer to the tables below to quickly understand the logs.
Data categories included in exported log files:
Category |
Description |
Date Time |
The date and time when the manipulation takes place |
Operator |
The account that conducts the manipulation |
Action |
The manipulation2 |
Related Path |
The file path of the affected file |
Related User |
The home folder of the affected user |
Related Share |
The affected shared folder |
Device Name |
The name of the device on which the manipulation is carried out |
Additional Attributes |
Additional parameter(s) related to the manipulation in JSON format |
Actions types in exported logs and the corresponding parameters:
Types |
Description |
Start service |
The Drive package service is started. |
Stop service |
The Drive package service is stopped. |
Enable share |
[Related Share] is enabled for the Drive service. |
Disable share |
[Related Share] is disabled for the Drive service. |
Client link |
[Device Name] is linked to the Drive server. |
Client unlink |
[Device Name] is unlinked from the Drive server. |
Restore version |
The file at the path [Related Path] is restored on the client [Device Name]3. |
Restore copy |
The file at the path [Related Path] is restored to the path [Additional Attributes: restore_to] on the client [Device Name]3. |
Restore from Recycle Bin |
The file at the path [Related Path] is restored from the Recycle Bin. |
Delete all versions |
All history versions of deleted files in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] are deleted in Drive Admin Console. |
Rotate version count |
The number of maximum history versions in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is set to [Additional Attributes: count]. |
Database volume |
The volume storing the database is changed from [Additional Attributes: old] to [Additional Attributes: new]. |
Log rotate count enable |
The maximum number of logs to be preserved is set to [Additional Attributes: count]. |
Log rotate count disable |
The limit on the maximum number of logs to be preserved is disabled. |
Log rotate span enable |
The maximum duration for logs to be preserved is set to [Additional Attributes: count]. |
Log rotate span disable |
The limit on the maximum duration for logs to be preserved is disabled. |
Log delete |
All logs are deleted from Drive Admin Console. |
Export logs |
Logs are exported from Drive Admin Console. |
Add |
The file at the path [Related Path] is added to the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] via [Device Name]3. |
Remove |
The file at the path [Related Path] is deleted from the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] via [Device Name]3. |
Modify |
The file at the path [Related Path] is modified in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] via [Device Name]3. |
Move |
The file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is moved to [Additional Attributes: move_to] via [Device Name]3. |
Rename |
The file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is renamed from [Additional Attributes: old_name] to [Additional Attributes: new_name] via [Device Name]3. |
Copy |
The file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is copied to [Additional Attributes: copy_to] via [Device Name]3. |
Delete from Recycle Bin |
The file at the path [Related Path] is deleted from the Recycle Bin. |
Note:
- The character encoding of exported CSV log files is UTF-8. You will need to open the files with a program that supports the UTF-8 character encoding.
- For the definition of each manipulation, please see the above table Actions types in exported logs and the corresponding parameters.
- Device name is only available if the action was done on a computer/mobile/NAS client.
User's My Drive
Administrators are able to enable or disable users' My Drive on Drive by adjusting the option of whether to enable home service.
To enable user's home service and My Drive:
- Go to Control Panel > User > Advanced.
- Tick the box next to Enable user home service.
Note:
When admin prevents a specific user from accessing his or her own home folder through ACL settings, Drive Admin Console executes the sync tasks regardless.
Team Folder
Administrators are able to enable or disable syncing specific Team Folders on Drive. If a Team Folder is enabled for syncing, then a user with read and write permissions to this folder can sync the regular files as well as the Synology Office files within.
To enable the Team Folder sync feature:
- Go to Team Folder.
- Use the search field at the top-right corner of Drive Admin Console to find Team Folders.
- Select the Team Folder you want to enable, and then click Enable.
Note:
- The Drive sync feature is available to DSM local Team Folders only.
- Only users with administrative privileges can manage the sync feature.
- Only users who have read/write privileges to a Team Folder can sync files within it to and from the server. If users only have read-only privileges to the selected Team Folder, they can only sync regular/Synology Office files from the host server to their client devices, and the changes made on the client side will not be synced back. To configure read/write privileges of a Team Folder, go to Control Panel > Shared Folder.
- The below data/shared folders cannot be synced across platforms:
- Mounted remote folders or virtual drives
- External USB drive shares
- All the Docker container data stored
- All the replicated data from Snapshot Replication
- Shared folders that no users are able to access (i.e. when the folders are being edited or mounted/unmounted).
- When restoring Drive's encrypted Team Folders with Hyper Backup, the folders will be non-encrypted and require re-mounting to be enabled as Team Folders.
- For models with 88f628x CPU, you can enable up to 100,000 folders for synchronization tasks.
Managing Historical Versions of Team Folders
Drive Admin Console saves historical versions of each modified file exclusive of Synology Office files.
- Go to Team Folder.
- Select the Team Folder which you want to edit historical versions and click Versioning.
- Enter a value between 1 and 32 in the Maximum Versions field.
- Select a Rotation Policy.
- Tick the Rotate versions regularly checkbox and choose a time frame for the regular rotation policy from the drop down menu.
- Click OK to save your settings.
Note:
- Accidentally deleted files cannot be recovered if versioning is not enabled.
- When the maximum version number is lowered, the extra versions will be deleted after the setting is applied.
- Enabling versioning for the My Drive (in users' home) folder will affect all users' personal sync folders (home/Drive) and their respective versioning settings.
- Turning on Intelliversioning allows Drive Admin Console to determine which version is of the lowest priority and rotate that version when the maximum version number is reached.
- If you tick the Rotate versions regularly checkbox, the system will automatically delete the versions that are created earlier than the set time frame upon 00:00 each day.
- The version control policies in Drive Admin Console do not apply to Synology Office files. To know more about the history versions of Synology Office files, please see this article.
Settings
Administrators can customize and fine-tune the syncing settings based on user profiles, log rotation rules, and database location on the Settings page.
Managing Sync Profiles
Administrators can configure different sync profiles for each user, and use this function to further refine user privileges.
To manage detailed sync behaviors and privileges:
- Go to Settings > the User Sync Profiles tab and click Create.
- In the File Filter tab, give your sync profile a name and specify the file sizes and types you don't want to sync.
- Go to the Applied User tab and tick the box next to the users you want to add to your sync profile.
- Click Apply and then Save to save your settings.
Note:
- When naming files that you don't want to sync, please note that on Windows capitalized and lower case file names are considered to be the same (ex. A.txt and a.txt), but on Linux and Mac systems they can be used as different file names.
- A user can be assigned more than one sync profile with different settings. In this case, if s/he is given the right to sync a file type by any of the sync profiles, this user will be able to sync that specific file type. Similarly, the higher maximum file size will apply.
Managing Database and Log Delete Rules
To specify the database location:
- Go to Settings > Others, and under Database, select a volume in the Database Location drop down menu.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
- While the database is being moved, Drive Admin Console will temporarily stop running. Sync tasks will resume once the database is ready.
To check database space usage:
- Go to Settings > Others > Database.
- Click Calculate to calculate real-time database space usage.
- Click Cancel to cancel the calculation.
To clean recycle bins in Drive:
- Go to Settings > Others > Database.
- Click Clean up to clean up all the files in the recycle bins of user's My Drive and Team Folder.
Adjusting Content Indexing Option
To adjust content indexing option:
- Go to Settings > Others, and under Content Indexing, tick the box to enable content indexing for newly-added users' "My Drive" or Team Folders on Drive.
- Click Customized indexing settings to edit indexing folders and scope for Drive files.
Note:
Content indexing will utilize system resource while the duration depends on system performance and the number of files.
Improving System Performance
To improve system performance with unused memory:
- Go to Settings > Others, and under Performance, tick the box to utilize unused system memory as database cache for performance improvement.
- Fill in the percentage you'd like to reserve for other applications.
- Tick the check box to prevent other applications from racing for the memory used as database cache for Drive.
Note:
For example, if the reserved memory for other applications is 30%, Drive will utilize up to 70% of the memory unused. And, when the third step is set, the database cache memory will remain for Drive and not allowing other application to race with it.
Managing Sharing Permissions
To manage non-admin users' sharing permissions:
Go to Settings > Others, and under Sharing, tick the boxes if you'd like to grant non-admin users sharing permissions including ability to share files publicly and directly share files with assigned DSM users and group accounts.
Note:
- Advanced protection link will be disabled as well if non-admin users' sharing permission with the public is not allowed.
- Internal file links are not limited by the option of whether to allow non-admin users to share files with DSM users and groups.
Customizing Sharing Link
To force the use of HTTPS:
- Tick the box next to Force the use of HTTPS on generated sharing links to have all newly generated links be in HTTPS format for added security.
To enable sharing link customization
- Tick the box next to Enable sharing link customization and select from the drop-down list of available domain for sharing link generation.
- If you'd like to customize your own domain for the sharing links, you may select Customized from the above drop-down menu and fill in the desired domain in the box next to Customized domain.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
Note:
- For more information regarding sharing link generation, please refer to this FAQ.
Setting Log Delete Rules
To set log delete rules:
- Go to Settings > Others and under Log Delete Rules, tick the box next to Number of logs is greater than to enable the rule and in the drop down menu, set the number of logs you don't want to exceed.
- Tick the box next to Log time is older than to enable the rule and set the length of time you want to keep logs.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
Configuring Email Notification Service
To configure email notification services:
Go to Settings > Others and under Email Notification Service, click Set up and system will lead you to configure the email notification service in Control Panel.
For Advanced Users
Storage space utilization:
Drive Admin Console keeps historical versions of every change in your Drive so you can easily restore a specific file that has been damaged or deleted by accident to an older version. These historical data will need extra storage on your Synology NAS. Versions of a file are based on the file's base version. Please note that users are encouraged to use the snapshot function supported in the Btrfs file system which takes up no additional storage volume for the base version. However, under ext4 file system, the demanded storage for versioning can be twice as much as the original occupied space on the disk. As for the following versions, only the differential data will be kept among different historical file versions.
Note:
- When spare capacity on the volume of Synology Drive Server is less than 2GB, synchronization tasks will be paused. Please modify or expand the volume and restart the package to resume the synchronization tasks.
Properties that are actually synchronized:
- Drive Admin Console is able to completely synchronize 7 known file properties:
- File data
- Mac extended attributes, such as label and colors on Mac OSX
- Execution bit
- Last modified time
- UNIX permissions, including owners and file modes
- Synology ACL
- Team Folder privileges
- Clients of different platforms have different policies:
Platform |
File data |
Mac extended attributes |
Execution bit |
Last modified time |
UNIX permissions |
Synology ACL |
Team Folder privilege |
Windows |
✓ |
- |
- |
✓ |
- |
- |
- |
Mac OSX |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
- |
- |
- |
Linux |
✓ |
- |
✓ |
✓ |
- |
- |
- |
DiskStation (Drive) |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Default action for file conflicts:
If two users change the same file at the same time, Drive Admin Console will compare last modified time of the two clients and retain the newest version.
Note:
- If Drive desktop application is used to sync files, users can go to Settings to customize file conflict policies.
- If Drive desktop application is used for computer backup, it will overwrite files on your Synology NAS with the latest local changes.
- For more information on the applied Synology NAS models of Drive, please refer to here.