Cloud Station Server

Note: Synology has discontinued support for Synology Cloud Station Server running on SRM platforms as well as the DS cloud mobile app.

Cloud Station is a file sharing service that allows you to synchronize files between a centralized Synology Router and multiple client computers and mobile devices. To seamlessly sync your data among these devices, a Synology Router has to be chosen as the host server, and the rest of the paired computers and mobile devices will act as the client devices. Before syncing files with client devices, the Cloud Station Server package needs to be installed on the host server, while a client utility needs to be installed on each of the client device you want to sync with.

Note:

Client applications must be installed on client computers before syncing files between Synology Router and your local computers.
- For file syncing, go to Synology Download Center and download the Cloud Station Drive utility.
- For real-time backup, go to Synology Download Center and download Cloud Station Backup utility.
Synology's DS cloud app is required in order to sync files between the Synology Router and your mobile devices. DS cloud can be downloaded for free on iOS App Store and Android Play Store.

Enable Cloud Station Server

Once Cloud Station Server is enabled, (and if you have enabled the QuickConnect service), you can see your QuickConnect ID on the overview page. Client computers, Synology NAS devices and mobile devices can use this information for creating connections.

Note:

QuickConnect is a connectivity testing and relay service that can help you set up Cloud Station Server on your client device easily without configuring port forwarding rules for your Synology Router. For detailed instructions, go to Control Panel > QuickConnect, and then click the Help button at the top-right corner.
For better syncing performance, it is recommended that you enable port forwarding on TCP port 6690 for your router and Synology Router. For more information, go to Control Panel > External Access > Router Configuration, and then click the Help button at the top-right corner.
To disable Cloud Station Server, go to Package Center > Installed and click Stop in the Action drop-down menu.

Manage User Privileges

You can specify which users can access Cloud Station Server service. Permitted users have the following privileges:

Sync files with your Synology Router
Launch Cloud Station Server from SRM Main Menu
Cloud Station Server is default enabled for all users.

To permit SRM user's access to Cloud Station Server:

Go to Control Panel > Privileges and select Cloud Station Server. Click Edit.
Go to User or Group tab to enable the users and groups to access Cloud Station service. Specify IP settings where needed.
Go to the Default privileges tab to specify whether new users will be automatically granted access to use Cloud Station service.
You can manage detailed sync behaviors and privileges against individual users via User Sync Profile in Cloud Station Server.

Note:

Only users with administrative privilege can manage user privileges.
If home service has been enabled, Cloud Station Server services will create a folder named CloudStation in the user's home folder (home/CloudStation), allowing each user to have a personal sync and backup folder (home/CloudStation/Drive and home/CloudStation/Backup). When admin prevents a specific user from accessing his or her own home folder through ACL settings, Cloud Station executes the sync jobs regardless. To enable user home service, go to Control Panel > User > Advanced, and tick the box next to Enable user home service.

Manage Client Connections

Click Client List to see the list of client computers that have been set up to sync files with your Synology Router using the Cloud Station Server service. You can see the client's computer name, the device name used for service authorization, IP address, syncing status, and the start time of file syncing between Synology Router and the client.

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 Cloud Station Server before they can sync to your Synology Router again.
Users with non-administrators can manage their own connections in this tab as well.

Manage Cloud Station Server Files with File Station

The Cloud Station files are saved in your home/CloudStation folder or shared folders that have Cloud Station Sharing. You can browse and download Cloud Station files (or their previous versions) with File Station or view historic versions.

To manage Cloud Station files:

Go to File Station, and then browse to home/CloudStation or shared folders.
Right-click 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 Cloud Station Files of shared folders. Other users can only browse the versions of files they have privileges to.

Manage Cloud Station Files with Version Explorer

You can use Version Explorer to view and manage previous versions of the modified or deleted files in your sync folders. Version Explorer allows you to view the history of your data on a timeline, allowing you to restore them to a point in time altogether.

To manage Cloud Station historical files:

In Overview, click Version Explorer to launch Version Explorer.
You can browse your data in different historical points by dragging and focusing the timeline to your desired point in time. You can also use the calendar to quickly jump to a specific date.
Choose a file or a folder, and click any of the following buttons:
- Copy to ...: Recover this file or folder to the time specified on the timeline, and copy the result to a selected folder.
- Download: Download this file or folder.
- Restore: Recover this file or folder to the time specified on the timeline.
You can do more by clicking Action and choose any of the following from the drop-down menu:
- Show deleted files: make deleted files visible in Version Explorer.
- Hide deleted files: hide deleted files from Version Explorer.
- Browse previous versions: View, download or restore previous versions of this chosen file.
- Delete permanently: Delete this file from the version history. Note that the file will be permanently removed and cannot be recovered.

To remove all the deleted files:

To remove all deleted files and previous versions, click Action > Clear version database. Please note you will not be able to recover the files that are deleted permanently. Please proceed with caution.

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 upper-right 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 Cloud Station Server database. Click to find them in File Station. You can also double-click the log entry to open the version history of a single file.

Settings

On the Settings page, Cloud Station Server allows users to customize and fine tune their settings.

Manage Cloud Station Server sharing feature

Click Sync Settings to enable/disable shared folders for the Cloud Station Server syncing feature. If a shared folder is enabled, then a user with read write permissions to this shared folder can sync the files within.

To enable shared folder syncing feature:

Use the search field at the top-right corner of Cloud Station Server to find shared folders.
Select the folder you want to enable, and then click Enable.

Note:

The Cloud Station syncing feature is only available for SRM local shared folders.
Only users with administrative privilege can manage the sharing feature.
Only users who have read/write privileges to a shared folder can sync files within it to and from the server. If the users only have read-only privileges for the selected shared folder, they can only sync 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 shared folder, go to Control Panel > Shared Folder.
Please do not mount remote folders or virtual drives on the shared folder you are about to sync.
All the Docker container data stored in a mounted shared folder cannot be synced.

Manage Historical Versions of Shared Folders

Cloud Station Server saves historical versions of each modified file. Every time you modify a file, a backup version is created, just in case you make mistakes or wish to revert to an older version.

Go to Settings > Sync Settings.
Select the shared folder for which you want to edit historical versions and click Versioning.
Enter a value between 0 and 32 in the Maximum Versions field.
Select a Rotation Policy.
Click OK to save your settings.

Note:

If versioning has not been enabled for shared folders, accidentally deleted files cannot be recovered.
Enabling versioning for the homes folder will affect all users' personal sync folders (home/CloudStation) and their respective versioning settings.
Turning on Intelliversioning allows Cloud Station Server to determine which version is of the lowest priority and rotate that version when the maximum version number is reached.

Manage Sync Settings

Cloud Station Server allows admin users to 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 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 setting file names you don't want to sync, please note that on Windows a capitalized and lowercase filenames are considered to be the same file (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 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.

Specify the database location 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, Cloud Station Server will stop running.

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 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.

For Advanced Users

If you would like to know more about the way Cloud Station Server works to keep your data safe and synced, please see Synology Cloud Station White Paper.

Storage space utilization:

Cloud Station Server keeps historical versions of every change in your Cloud Station folder. If you conduct a bad modification, or if the file has been damaged or deleted by accident, you can easily restore the file to an older version. However, it requires at least one full copy of any given file as the base version for file history, so the selected shared folders will need doubled disk space. Only the differential data will be kept among different historical file versions.

Note:

If the number of versions is set to zero, Cloud Station Server will no longer keep track of the historical versions, therefore no additional space is required. But once files are deleted, previous versions cannot be restored.
Synchronization tasks will pause if the unused volume capacity of Cloud Station Server is less than 2GB. To resume the synchronization tasks, please adjust or expand the volume and then restart Cloud Station Server.

What properties are actually synchronized?

When the clients are installed on the platforms listed below, Cloud Station Server on SRM is capable of comprehensively syncing the following known file properties:
- File data
- Mac extended attributes, such as label and colors on Mac OSX
- Execution bit
- Last modified time
Clients installed on different platforms are associated with different policies:

Platform	File data	Mac extended attributes	Execution bit	Last modified time
Windows	✓	-	-	✓
Mac OSX	✓	✓	✓	✓
Linux	✓	-	✓	✓
iOS (DS cloud)	✓	-	-	✓
Android (DS cloud)	✓	-	-	-

Default action for file conflicts:

If two users change the same file at the same time, Cloud Station Server will compare last modified time of the two clients and retain the newest version.

Note:

If Cloud Station Drive is used to sync files, users can go to Settings to customize file conflict policies.
If Cloud Station Backup is used for real-time backup, Cloud Station Backup will overwrite files on your Synology NAS with the newest local changes.

Limitations on EDS14 and SRM:

Cloud Station only supports external hard drives or USB drives formatted in EXT4 with capacity larger than 4GB.
The Cloud Station Server installed on EDS14 or SRM does not support shared folder syncing; instead, it only supports the synchronization of individual users' home folders. Therefore, you cannot pair a Cloud Station ShareSync client with a Cloud Station Server installed on EDS14 or SRM.
Database location settings are not changeable.

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