Multi-user setup advice

[gadget]

@prologic

@gadget

It’s possible to have just one Syncthing instance on the NAS for multiple users while still preserving privacy by using Syncthing’s “Receive Encrypted” feature if access to the user running Syncthing on the NAS is restricted.

Can you please point me to documentation or explain how this works? Running a single Syncthing instance on my NAS for my wife/I (and in future children) just for syncing important files/docs, etc, would be ideal. Looking at the configuration options I would have to muck around with ports if I have to run multiple instances. A single instance would be ideal

The basic setup is the same as for just two devices:

1. On the NAS, configure a single instance of Syncthing (the user running it would own all files and folders synced with it).
2. On a device, share one or more Syncthing folders with the NAS.

As more devices are added, use consistent Syncthing folder labels to help with organization, e.g., “MacBook: Pictures”, "MacBook: Documents, “Dell Inspiron: Documents”, “Samsung Galaxy S22: DCIM”, “iPhone 14: Photos”, etc.

On each device, let Syncthing auto-generate the folder IDs (e.g., abcde-fghij) rather than be tempted to manually assign a name such as “Documents”, which is almost guaranteed to have a naming collision at some point as more devices are added.

Because each new shared folder must be accepted on the NAS, there’s no chance that a user on a particular device can simply add a new shared folder that trashes another user’s shared folder without notice. This is also where sticking with the auto-generated 10-character folder IDs comes in handy – a user on another device must know the folder ID to access its contents.

Because you’re not intending to share data between devices, there’s little reason to allow 2-way sync, so set every Syncthing folder on the devices to “Send Only” to prevent changes on the NAS from propagating out to the devices.

On each device, optionally mark the NAS as “Untrusted” under the “Remote Devices” panel. This forces an encryption password be set when sharing a Syncthing folder with the NAS. On the NAS, the corresponding receiving Syncthing folder changes to “Receive Encrypted”. This provides a layer of privacy, but the downside is that proper password management is critical.