Sharing certain folders with collaborators

[c3o]

Hi all! First of all, thank you for taking the time and effort to run such a great program.

I am no expert in networks or coding, yet I managed to set up and run everything pretty smoothly for several years thanks to your forum and guides.

Now, I have a bit of a noobie question. I have a NAS (synology) with two shared folders [A],[B] across four devices. Everything syncs with everyone so it’s a pretty simple scenario.

Now, we are getting more collaborators and I’m trying to figure out a way to selectively share some folders [i.e. A/folder/TheFolderIdLikeToShare] from the shared folder [A] with them, without them accessing the other files on the server. The goal would be to have the possibility to create a folder with a certain name, allowing the collaborators to see just inside that folder and keeping everything synced with the devices that have full access.

I tried automating the process using the .stignore rules: I re-shared the folder [A] with a rule to exclude all folders but the onles called with a certain name

!**-DEFINED_NAME
*

And I shared it only with the collaborators. However, of course, the original .stignore was overwritten and it didn’t work. Stupid me.

I thing a workaround would be to set up the collaborator’s clients stignore with the same parameters sharing the folder [A] plain and simple, but I don’t like the idea that, should they somehow change their ignore preferences on their clients, they’d have full access to folder [A].

Perhaps there is a less contorted way to do this? Sorry if this is confusing and thanks in advance!

[AudriusButkevicius]

I would just create another syncthing folder pointing at the specific folder you want to share, and share that.

[c3o]

Thanks! I thought of this but then I’d have to create a share for each folder I’d like to share within the folder [A], right?

At the moment I have several folders (circa 30) inside the main shared folder, is there a way to avoid having 30 shared folders?

What I’m looking for is, probably, a workaround for a selective syncing of the NAS structure towards different peers :\

[AudriusButkevicius]

Not really, you could try bind mounts if you’re technical enough, or just trust that the receiver will not fiddle with ignore patterns.

You could also try finding a different common root where you then could have different ignore file. So share A/foo and ignore bar instead of sharing A and ignoring foo/bar

[c3o]

I’ll try one of the options you suggested. Many thanks!