Creating user accounts

Shared folders exposed by SynaMan are displayed to users through web browser. There is a many-to-many relationship between users and shared folders - meaning one user can have access to multiple folders and one folders can be access by more than one user.

When SynaMan is installed it automatically creates one user account called admin, which is a special account used for managing SynaMan. If you are using the Personal Version of SynaMan, this is the only account you are allowed to have. Although, the Personal Version will allow you to create additional users, logging in as a different user in a production environment is a licensing policy violation.

Types of users

There are 3 types of users in SynaMan:

1. Admin - This is a built-in super user that is used to modify configuration in SynaMan. This is the only user allowed when using SynaMan in Personal mode
2. Normal users - These users are local to SynaMan and are identified by their email address. The primary purpose of these users is to upload and download files. No configuration changes are permitted by these users.
3. Active Directory users - These are similar to normal users with the following differences:
   • Available only in the Enterprise edition
   • Administrators do not have to create these users. Authentication is done through Active Directory. A user is automatically created in SynaMan when a valid Active Directory user tries to connect to SynaMan's web interface.
   • Passwords are integrated with your Windows network.

Creating users

Local users

Follow the steps below to create new users

• Log in using the admin account
• Click on Manager Users
• Click Add a new user
• This opens up a small allowing you to specify the user's name, email and a password. The email address of the user is used as a log in

Creating Active Directory user

Do NOT create these users manually. Have a valid AD user login to the web interface. An account will be created automatically for them.

Differences between normal and AD users

Following table summarizes differences between normal users and Active Directory users:

	Normal users	Active Directory users
Scope	Local to SynaMan. Not connected to the operating system or network	Integrated with Windows domain
Creation	Must be created by an administrator using the web interface	Created automatically. Have a valid AD user log in to the web interface using their Windows credential.
Login	User's email address is used to identify the user. Since login ID is same as the email, SynaMan hides the email field when modifying this type of user.	Windows account name is used to identify the user. In this case email address and account name are different. SynaMan tries to fetch user's email address from Active Directory and allows administrators to modify their email address if necessary.

Assigning folders to users

Once a user is created, click on the Add Folder link next to the user's name. Select the desired folder and check appropriate permissions.

When read permission is granted, the user will be able to:

• List files in a shared folder
• Download files to their local machine from the host machine
• Create public links allowing others to download

When write permission is granted, the user will be able to:

• List files in a shared folder
• Upload files from their local machine to the host machine
• Create public links allowing others to upload files.
  

Home folder

A home folder is a special folder that is:

• Created automatically when a user is created
• Only one user has access to this folder
• Every user has both read and write access to this folder

To enable this feature, administrators must specify a base directory where these home folders will be located. For example, if the base directory is set to: A new user identified by john.doe@xyz.com will have his home folder in

Click here to read more about home folder.