Folder structure / account type

[Kenny_K]

Hi, I'm new here, and new to Synology NAS, I am replacing a WD My Cloud that I used for years, until a recent lightning strike took it out. I have bought a DS118 using a WD 6TB drive to replace it. I have started setting it up, but before I load all my data on it, want to check something. In the default folder tree, on the root, there is "home", "homes", "photos", "music", and "videos". I created a user account for both my wife and myself, the folders for these accounts appear as a sub folder of "homes". I moved a few files into different folders to make sure things worked as expected. What I found was that there is a "drive" folder in the "home" folder as well as in my user folder in "homes". If I drop a file into my user "drive" folder it also appears in the "home" drive folder. If I drop a file into my wifes user folder it does not appear anywhere else. So, I am wondering if I need to have a user folder for myself, or as the owner/administrator am I meant to use the "home" folder as my user folder?

I have searched and searched the web and Synology's resources for information to better explain the folder structure and heirarchy, but am unable to find answers to these questions. I am hoping someone here can set me straight.

I use a windows 10 PC. The type of setup I am wanting to achieve is a personal folder for both my wife and myself. Shared music, photos, videos, as per default. And add to that an additional shared folder or two. All remotely accessable. There is also to be a folder for backups of our PC's etc. I have an iDrive account and will be setting up a back up of the NAS to iDrive as well, after I get all the folders and files installed the best way possible.

All help appreciated, I really want to get this right the first time.
Cheers,
Ken.

 

[fredbert]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

If you are seeing /homes then you must be logged in as an administrator. This /homes shared folder is the real location of all DSM users' 'home' folders. In /homes you'll see a folder per user and this folder will be presented as that user's /home folder when they connect using File Station and othe network file sharing services.

See the User Home section here (also accessible from within DSM itself)...

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What you should not be doing is to use /homes for your normal file storage, instead use /homes.

If you want to have a folder that both you and your wife's normal user accounts can access then create a new shared folder in Control Panel and add the user accounts to it's access permissions.

As for the /home/Drive folder that you found, this folder is created in each user's home by Synology Drive.

 

[Rusty]

And add to that an additional shared folder or two.

This can be configured as a root shared folder in Control panel and then use Drive Admin console to activate that folder as a Team folder. This means that that folder will be visible inside your Drive structure as a shared folder separate for your personal Drive root content (“MyDrive”).

 

[Kenny_K]

What you should not be doing is to use /homes for your normal file storage, instead use /homes.

Did you mean to say, "What you should not be doing is to use /home." rather than "/homes"?
So all normal personal file storeage in /homes/user, and what in home?

-- post merged: 26. Jan 2021 --

I posed the same query to Synology support, here is part of what they said:
You can use the administrator account as before, no need to create another normal user account for yourself.

So they are saying to use /home for my personal file storeage, and /homes for other users.
Do you guys agree?

 

[Telos]

You can use the administrator account as before, no need to create another normal user account for yourself.

It's possible. But very poor security practice.

 

[fredbert]

Did you mean to say, "What you should not be doing is to use /home." rather than "/homes"?
So all normal personal file storeage in /homes/user, and what in home?

Sorry there was a rogue ‘s’, I meant this:

​

“What you should not be doing is to use /homes for your normal file storage, instead use /home.”​

You can use the administrator account as before, no need to create another normal user account for yourself.

One can do a lot of things, whether one should is a different thing.

Using an administrator account for everyday activity goes against recognise best practice: for Synology Support to suggest otherwise, to me, is a real cause for concern.

Ignoring any vulnerabilities in software that could be leveraged to expose data and resource, the average user has a poor record of using the basic password protection that secures their data and online identities. By making the assertion, Synology Support have failed to help you to understand the better, more secure way that you can be using their product. What they should have done was to provide some basic education on why you should not be using administrator account, except for those task that require elevated privileges.

 

[Kenny_K]

Ok, I have been doing some trial and error testing as I can not find any information on what the "home" folder's purpose is. And it is doing my head in! Please see attached screenshots. You will see the "home" folder which contains a "drive" folder, (these folders are default). You will also see the 3 user folders within the "homes" folder, "admin" (default), "Ken" & "Sharon", all containing drive folders.

The "home>drive" folder will contain exactly the same files as whichever user has ownership of the "home>drive" folder as per attached. I don't understand what the doubling up of these drive folders is all about. Whether it is because I have set it up wrong or there is a purpose that I am unaware of? I thought maybe I don't need the "home" folder, so looked to see if I could delete it, but no I could not. I can delete the "drive" folder contained within the "home" folder however, so that is an option.

I though then that maybe I don't need the user account for myself, I could perhaps just use the "home" folder for me? So I deleted myself as a user and tried to log in. This was unsuccessful. I could then only log in as admin. So I re-created my user account.

So can anyone help me understand the above, especially why does the "home" folder exist, should I keep the "home>drive" folder, what is it's purpose, who should own it?

Cheers.

 

[fredbert]

Have tried to explain this earlier.

Homes: this Shared Folder is only visible to administrator users. Within this folder is the real location of each user's 'home' folder. As such the Shared Folder's permissions are configured to allow administrator users to have full access to all of its contents but any standard user only has access to their own /homes/<username> folder, and this is via the special, virtual folder called 'Home'.

It is quite possible for an administrator user to completely break User Home by changing configuration settings of Homes. Also if an administrator uses another user's Home folder then any content may be inaccessible to that user due to the access permissions of that content being assigned to an administrator.

Home: this special Shared Folder is managed by DSM and is different for each user, administrator and standard. This folder is only accessible to that particular user and no other standard user account: an administrator user can access this folder by navigating to /homes/<username>.

Within a user's Home folder (or /homes/<username>) there will be some folders that are create by the packages when they are installed. For instance, Synology Drive will create /home/Drive (/homes/<username>/Drive) for every user account, and Audio Station will create /home/music (/homes/<username>/music). With Synology Drive installed this then permits installation of Synology Moments which then creates /home/Drive/Moments (/homes/<username>/Drive/Moments).

Whether using an administrator or standard user account the best practice is to use that user's Home folder, and not (for administrators) via the /homes/<username> route.



I suggest that you log into DSM as a standard user, <user1>, and then add a file or folder to their Home folder. Then log out and sign in as an administrator user and look at: /home ; /homes ; /homes/<admin-user> ; /homes/<user1> ; /homes/<user2>.

What do you see? You should see that only /homes/<user1> has the new file/folder. This shows that /home changes it's meaning for each user. Also, while there is a .../Drive folder in each user's Home folder that does not mean it's the same folder with the same content.

 

[Kenny_K]

Hi fredbert, Thanks for your explanation. I am pretty sure I understand all that you have said, unless I am missing something.
I think you are only referring to the users home folders that are inside the homes folder.
The folder that has me baffled is the folder called home that is outside of the homes folder.
Have a look at the attachment, I have circled it in red. Am I missing something?

EDIT:
I just studied again what you said and tried a few things as suggested, I think I now understand. And it is this statement that you made that is key: Home: this special Shared Folder is managed by DSM and is different for each user, administrator and standard. This folder is only accessible to that particular user and no other standard user account: an administrator user can access this folder by navigating to /homes/<username>.
I couldn't see it before, but now I am pretty sure I understand and can move forward. Thanks.

 

[fredbert]

The folder that has me baffled is the folder called home that is outside of the homes folder.

I don't know how to explain this again.

"Home: this special Shared Folder is managed by DSM and is different for each user, administrator and standard. This folder is only accessible to that particular user and no other standard user account: an administrator user can access this folder by navigating to /homes/<username>."

User account	DSM account type	"Home" linked to	Can access "Homes"
<admin>	administrator	/homes/<admin>	Yes
<user1>	standard	/homes/<user1>	No
<user2>	standard	/homes/<user2>	No

So, "Home" is presented to the user as their way to access their /homes/<username> folder. You can see both 'Home' and 'Homes' because you insist on using an administrator's account. When you login as a standard user you will only see that user's 'Home' folder.


Home is maintained by DSM as the user's way to access their User Home folder. You aren't asking why you shouldn't just use low-level hardware methods to directly read-write the data to disk, thereby by-passing the Homes folder and file system, so why are you wanting to by-pass a user's Home folder just because you can by-pass it by logging in as an administrator user and go direct to /homes/<username>?

Do all your day-to-day work as a standard user and only use the administrator account to access tasks that require it (e.g. setting up DSM, updating packages, etc).

 

[Kenny_K]

Yep that's how I understand it! And that is how I am now set up, what you have shown in the table above. I no longer have my user account set as an administrator account. I really appreciate your efforts to help me understand, we got there in the end. Have a great weekend!

 

[fredbert]

Yep that's how I understand it! And that is how I am now set up, what you have shown in the table above.

Hooray!!!

 

[simcc]

One thing I'll add is: don't use the "admin" account at all (as in the account named admin). It should be deactivated. Set up a separate account with administrator privileges with a unique name, and have 2FA enabled on that account (if not all accounts).