Hi Rex, do you have any videos or discussions around how to manage multiple Synology devices effectively? I have two at home and hope to get some more and spread those around to friends and family.
Are users managed locally, per device? Or is there some kind of federation model where the Synology devices all adhere to one user structure? Similar to Active Directory? (like each Synology would be a domain controller).
I was also trying to use the Active Insight app but that seems to not work. When I login it only shows one Synology device (ds1515p) and says “Only hosts assigned with licenses can be monitored” which is funny because I have no license of any kind on that device. My ds2419p has none either, but won’t show.
Depends on what you want to manage
→ if you wan to manage the NAS settings than Centralized Management is a nice tool. It allows monitoring of the NAS & drives and through the policy section can be used to configure/update multiple Synology NAS devices (think of it like a ActiveDirectory exclusivly for Synology NAS devices). It does not manage users. You can deploy apps but jou can not monitor the events of the apps (e.g. Hyperbackup failed because of…)
Noob:
Do local users for each machine. For 2 machines this is by far the most efficient approach
Average level:
→ Synology has Synology Directory Server which is basically a ActiveDirectory at Version 2008. This allows to setup a domain forest to which the NAS devices can be joined. You can install the windows RSAT tools (on windows machines) to administer the domain. You can set up GPOs but I have seen mixed results with GPO deployment. But this was some years back.
You might check this channel for content:
[(419) Synology Advanced Active Directory Administration #1 - YouTube]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EIO-nEIAY4)
Hardcore level:
→ If you have a beefier NAS (min 8GB RAM) you can install VMM and run a windows server as virtual machine with role of primary domain controller. If you have only 4GB RAM you could install a Server Core (requires 2GB of RAM for installation) and manage the machine through the modern admin center and RSAT tools.
Synology has also a Cloud identity service but I have never looked into this.,
C2 Identity (synology.com)
BUT…since a 2nd NAS always beats any other means of backup I usually end up with setups with NAS#01 for content and NAS#2 for backup of NAS#1. In this scenario I need no user managment on NAS#02 as only very few users have acces (adminnas#02 and recoveryadminnas#02)
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