Implementing Groups

Once the policy, groups, and users are defined and agreed the next step is to translate the information into the shared device. Using the DSM as an example load up the management interface then from the dashboard head into Control Panel and, as we are going to be looking at a group first, head into Group.

In the Group panel there may be some groups already setup, for example administrators and a generic users group, but we will create a new group for employees by clicking Create.

NOTE: At this time you should ensure the members of the “administrators” group is kept to an absolute minimum and that the password is highly secure.

Basic information required for a group is typically just the group name however a group description may also be available, as in the DSM, and if so it is worth filling this in. For this example we will call the group “employees” as this will be a basic group for all employees in our imaginary mega corporation.

After clicking Next we can access the real core of the functionality which allows us to assign our group access to our shared folders – in this case we have two folders already configured, “data” and “music”. In this example we are concerned only with the “data” folder and we want to provide all employees read/write access so we check the corresponding box.

On the Synology DSM we can specify for each shared folder either “Read only”, “Read/Write”, or “No access” which blocks access completely.

At this stage this is all the information required for creating groups using the DSM and the next step is to assign users to the groups.