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 Synology Drive. To seamlessly sync data among users' different devices, a Synology NAS has to be designated 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, Synology 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 administrators group will be able to view Synology 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 the desktop application Synology Drive Client.
- Synology Drive mobile app must be installed in order for you to browse files on Synology Drive server with your mobile devices. The Drive app can be downloaded from Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Contents
Monitoring Server Status
Administrators can get a glimpse of the overall server usage on the Overview page, including information about connected clients, breakdown by client type, file access information, and usage trend.
Client Device Info offers information on the total number of connected clients as well as a breakdown by client type. This information helps administrators monitor connection status and evaluate the bandwidth usage of each connected device.
Synced Client Last Connection Time ranks the synced clients by connection time, which offers the syncing and pairing status of each device. You can click the arrow at the upper right-hand corner of the Client Device Info section to jump to the Client List page to manage the clients.
Top Accessed Files by External Users allows the administrator to monitor the sharing status of files. Since only publicly shared files will appear in this section, the administrators will be able to take action quickly if the sharing settings of confidential files were set incorrectly. The administrator can choose to rank the files within a specific time period and by either preview counts, download counts, or both.
Package Usage Trend displays usage trends for 3 types of data - file versions, database usage, and Synology Office files.
- File Versions: File versions and files in recycle bins.
- Database: Metadata (sharing settings, labels, etc.) and logs.
- Synology Office Files: Synology Office documents, spreadsheets, slides, and their historical versions.
Note:
- Due to the design of file system, the estimated usage for file versions may exceed the actual usage on Btrfs. For an accurate estimate of the overall Synology Drive Server storage usage, please go to DSM > Storage Manager. To learn more about how to check the figures, please refer to this article.
- To manage and free up the storage of this package, please refer to this article.
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 Synology 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 their connections to Synology Drive Admin Console before they can sync to your Synology NAS again.
Managing Synology Drive Admin Console Files with File Station
Synology Drive files are saved in your home/Drive folder or Team Folders that have been enabled in Synology Drive Admin Console. You can browse and download historical files via historical versions in Synology Drive as well as in File Station.
To manage Synology 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 manage Synology Drive files in shared folders. Other users can only browse the versions of files they have privileges to.
Log
Log allows you to keep track of what actions have been performed by users within a specific period. You can view the log in its entirety with all events or view events by different folders, which can be selected from the drop-down menu at the top.
To filter logs:
- Click the arrow in the search bar at the upper-right hand corner.
- In the drop-down menu, you can filter events by:
- Keyword: Enter any keywords to search the file path by that keyword.
- User: Enter the name of any user to find events related to the user.
- IP Address: Enter an IP address to search for events related to that IP address.
- 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 date range.
- Type: Select the type of event you wish to view from the drop-down menu. You can also select Customize to select several different types of events at once.
- To reset your filtered log, click Reset and then Search again.
Note:
- File and folder names are hyperlinks if the file or folder still exists in Synology Drive Admin Console database. Click to find them in File Station. You can also double-click on an 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 Export, 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 for an explanation of the logs.
Data categories included in exported log files:
Category |
Description |
Date Time |
The date and time when the change takes place |
Operator |
The account that conducts the change |
Action |
The change2 |
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 change is carried out |
Additional Attributes |
Additional parameters related to the change in JSON format |
Action types in exported logs and the corresponding parameters:
Type |
Description |
Start service |
The Drive package service is launched. |
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. |
Changed sharing link permissions |
The file's permission at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is changed from [Additional Attributes:old_permission] to [Additional Attributes: permission] via [Device Name]3. |
Created a public link |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is created via [Device Name]3. |
Deleted a public link |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is deleted via [Device Name]3. |
Allow options to download and copy for a public link |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] created via [Device Name] is allowed to be downloaded and copied. |
Disallow options to download and copy for a public link |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] created via [Device Name] is not allowed to be downloaded and copied. |
Set password protection |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is set with password protection via [Device Name]3. |
Remove password protection |
The password protection of a public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] has been removed via [Device Name]3. |
Set link expiration |
A public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] has been set with expiration via [Device Name]3. |
Remove link expiration |
The expiration of a public link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] has been removed via [Device Name]3. |
Set a user / group |
[Related User] has been set as a [Additional Attribute: role] to a sharing link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] via [Device Name]3. |
Remove a user / group |
[Related User] has been removed as a [Additional Attribute: old_role] from a sharing link of the file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] via [Device Name]3. |
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. |
Download file |
The file at the path [Related Path] is downloaded to the local device. |
View file |
The file at the path [Related Path] in the "home" folder of [Related user] or the Team Folder [Related Share] is viewed via [Device Name]3. |
Log rotation policy enabled |
The rotation policy of logs has been enabled. |
Cleaned up Recycle Bin |
The files are deleted from the Recycle Bin. |
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 file change, please see the above table Action types in exported logs and the corresponding parameters.
- The device name is only available if the action was carried out on a computer/mobile/NAS client.
Setting Log Delete Rules
To set log delete rules:
- Go to Log > Settings and in the pop-up window, tick Number of logs is greater than to enable the rule and select the number of logs you do not want to exceed in the drop-down menu.
- Tick Log time is older than to enable the rule and select the length of time you want to keep logs from the drop-down menu.
- You can click Delete All Logs if you wish to delete all logs.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
User's My Drive
Administrators are able to enable or disable users' My Drive on Synology 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 Enable user home service.
Note:
- Synology Drive Admin Console executes sync tasks even if the admin restricts a specific user's access to his or her own home folder through ACL settings.
Team Folder
Administrators are able to enable or disable syncing specific Team Folders on Synology Drive. If a Team Folder is enabled for syncing, a user with read and write permissions to this folder can sync the regular files as well as the Synology Office files contained within.
To enable the Team Folder sync feature:
- Go to Team Folder.
- Use the search field at the upper-right corner of Synology Drive Admin Console to find Team Folders.
- Select the Team Folder you want to enable and click Enable.
Note:
- Synology Drive sync feature is available to DSM local Team Folders only.
- Only users with administrative privileges can manage the sync feature.
- Users must have read/write privilege to perform two-way sync to a Team Folder. Users with read-only privilege to a Team Folder can only perform one-way sync, which means files from the host server are synced to client devices but not the other way around. To manage 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
- Data stored by Docker container
- 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 Synology Drive's encrypted Team Folders with Hyper Backup, the folders will not be encrypted and must be re-enabled as Team Folders
Managing Historical Versions of Team Folders
Synology 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 Rotate versions regularly 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 Synology 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 Rotate versions regularly, 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 Synology Drive Admin Console do not apply to Synology Office files. To know more about the historical versions of Synology Office files, please see this article.
Managing Files in Synology 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 a specific date and time, allowing you to restore data to a point in time altogether.
To manage the historical versions of all the files in Synology Drive:
Version Explorer in Synology 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 Synology Drive.
- In Team Folder, 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.
- At the upper-right corner, click Change after the username in View role to switch viewing identity.
- Tick Show deleted files to make deleted files visible in Version Explorer.
- Choose a file or a folder, and click any of the following buttons:
- Browse previous versions: View, download or restore previous versions of the chosen file.
- Restore: Recover the file or folder to a specified time.
- Download: Download the 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 selected, passwords are required before any file changes.
- When copying Synology Office files to non-Synology Drive covered destinations or downloading Synology Office files, the files will be automatically converted to corresponding Microsoft Office file formats for access availability.
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 Package Usage
To specify the database and Synology Office files locations:
- Go to Settings > General, and under Package Usage, select a volume from the Location drop-down menu.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
Note:
- While the database and Synology Office files are being moved, all services in the Synology Drive Server package will temporarily stop running. Sync tasks will resume once they are ready.
To check database space usage:
- Go to Settings > General, and under Package Usage, click Calculate to calculate real-time Synology Drive package usage.
- Click Cancel to cancel the calculation.
To clean recycle bins in Synology Drive:
- Go to Settings > General, and under Package Usage, 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 > General, and under Content Indexing, tick the checkbox to enable content indexing for newly-added users' My Drive or Team Folder on Synology Drive.
- Click Customized indexing settings to edit indexing folders and scope for Synology Drive files.
Note:
- Content indexing utilizes system resources. The time it takes to index content depends on system performance and the number of files to be processed.
Improving System Performance
To improve system performance with unused memory:
- Go to Settings > General, and under Performance, tick the checkbox to utilize unused system memory as database cache for performance improvement.
- Fill in the percentage you would like to reserve for other applications.
- Tick the checkbox to prevent other applications from racing for the memory used as database cache for Synology Drive.
Note:
- For example, if the reserved memory for other applications is 30%, Synology Drive will utilize up to 70% of the unused memory. And, when the third step is set, the database cache memory will be kept for Synology Drive and not allowing other application to race with it.
Configuring Email Notification Service
To configure email notification services:
Go to Settings > General, and under Email Notification Service, click Set up and the system will take you to Control Panel to configure the email notification service.
Changing Users' Display Name
To change the display name:
- Go to Settings > General, and under Display Name, select how DSM usernames will be displayed. The Default display name options are Username or Nickname. This setting is applied to users who set their display name settings to the system default.
Managing File Access for Non-admin Users
To manage server resources such as lowering the server load, the administrator can choose to disallow non-admin users to connect to Synology Drive server and sync or back up data from any sync devices such as Synology Drive Client and Synology Drive ShareSync.
Preserving Files Created by Deleted Users
In situations where an user account is to be deleted (e.g., when an employee leaves the company), administrators can use File Ownership Transfer to transfer all the files from their My Drive to an active user.
- Go to Settings > General, and under File Ownership Transfer, enter the usernames from and to whom you'd like the files transferred. An autocomplete list will appear as you start typing.
- Click Transfer Files to start the transfer.
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 > User Sync Profiles 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 checkbox next to the users you want to add to your sync profile.
- Click Apply 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 (e.g., A.txt vs. a.txt), but on Linux and macOS systems they can be used as different file names.
- A user can be assigned multiple sync profiles with different settings. If any of the sync profiles allows the user to sync a specific file type while other profiles prohibits it, then he or she will still be able to do so. Similarly, if the user has multiple sync profiles with different maximum file size restrictions, the higher limit will apply to the user.
Managing Sharing Permissions
To manage non-admin users' sharing permissions:
Go to Settings > Sharing, and under Sharing Settings for Non-admin Users, tick the checkboxes if you would like to grant non-admin users sharing permissions, including the ability to share files publicly and internally, only internally, or disallow users to share files. Under Sharing Permissions, the administrator can select specific users or groups to grant public sharing permissions, and enforce password or expiration date protection rules for higher security level for public sharing links. Under Internal Sharing Rule, the administrator can select how users can share internal files, either through links, by inviting DSM users or groups, or either.
Note:
- Public link will be disabled if non-admin users' sharing permission with the public is withdrawn.
Customizing Sharing Link
To force the use of HTTPS:
- Tick 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 Enable sharing link customization and select available domains from the Domain drop-down menu for generating sharing links.
- If you wish 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 Customized domain field.
- Click Apply to save your settings.
Note:
- For more information regarding generating sharing links, please refer to this FAQ.
For Advanced Users
Storage space utilization:
Synology Drive Admin Console retains historical versions of every change in your Synology 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. As for the following versions, only the differential data will be kept among different historical file versions.
Note:
- Please note that users are encouraged to use the snapshot function supported in Btrfs file system which takes up no additional storage volume for the base version. However, under ext4 file system, the required storage for versioning can occupy twice as much as the original used space on the disk.
- When the spare capacity on the volume of Synology Drive Server is less than 2 GB, synchronization tasks will be paused. Please expand the volume and restart the package to resume sync tasks.
Properties that are actually synchronized:
- Synology Drive Admin Console is able to completely synchronize seven 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 on different OS 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 |
✓ |
- |
✓ |
✓ |
- |
- |
- |
DSM (Drive) |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
The default action for file conflicts:
If two users make changes to the same file simultaneously, Synology Drive Admin Console will compare the last modified time of the two clients and retain the newest version.
Note:
- If Synology Drive Client is used to sync files, users can go to Settings to customize file conflict policies.
- If Synology Drive Client 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 Synology Drive, please refer to this page.