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Synology NAS beginners guide | part 13 | Create user accounts
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Synology NAS beginners guide | part 13 | Create user accounts

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In this video we will show you how to create user accounts on a Synology NAS. However we start the video by looking at User Advanced, to review the rules relating to enhancing password strength, and enabling something called Home Service. Finally we will create a new user account, by taking a look at the User Creation Wizard, and describe any options available as we go.

Home Service is a system that automatically creates a Home folder and links that folder to a specific user. With the main aim of a Home Folder being that it will remain a private storage space. However certain Synology packages such as Drive, Photos and Audio Station can be configured to utilise a Home folder. This then allows those packages to be configured so that they do not share an individuals data with other users.

Note: A package is simply the term used on a Synology NAS, to describe a piece of software or application, that can be installed into Disk Station Manager.

Quick reference notes
  • Log into Disk Station Manager using your Administrators credentials
  • From the desktop of DSM select Control Panel – Users & Groups
  • In the Users & Groups panel select Create to open the User Creation Wizard
  • The wizard will help you with the creation of a new user account 
  • In Name field enter the name of the user you will be creating

Note: When we create user accounts on our Synology NAS. If the user is a Windows user, by making the user name and the password match the credentials they use to log into Windows. The prompt for network credentials will not appear.

  • While the Description field is non-mandatory, it can be useful to enter something meaningful like Standard User, or System Admin. As it will be easier to identify groups of users when they are presented in a list.
  • Email is another non-mandatory field. However, if you enable notifications this field will be used to communicate to new users that their account is ready, or they need to change their password.
  • For Password you will need to create a password that conforms to the password strength rules you set in Advanced.
  • Leave the tick boxes to both ‘Send a notification to the newly created user‘ and ‘Disallow user to change account password‘ un-ticked.
  • In Join groups all users will be included in the Users group.

Note: If you remember in the previous video, when we created Groups for our NAS, we edited the Users groups. This was so that whenever we create a new user account, by default everyone would have specific access rights to certain network shares.

  • Using the check boxes tick any groups you want your new user to be part of.
  • After selecting Next, we are shown a list that summarises the access permissions our new user will have access to.

Note: As we use Groups to set access permissions to our network shares. There is no need to change any permissions in the Assign Share Folder Permissions panel.

  • When we choose Next, we are shown the Assign User Quota panel.

Note: While it can be useful to limit how much data each individual can stored in a network share. For home users this probably is not necessary. So because you can amend this setting if needed. For now we recommend you leave this option unchanged.

  • The next option is Assign Application Permissions, which we will also leave unchanged.
  • Set User Speed Limits we will also leave unchanged.
  • By selecting Next, we are shown the summary panel.
  • If happy with the settings for this User account select Done.
Test you can open a network share in Windows 
  • Select the Windows button and search for Terminal
  • Open the Terminal application
  • At the command prompt type: 
net use P: \\the ip address of your nas\Public /persistent:n
  • When you press enter you will be prompted to enter a user name and password.
  • Type a user name and password from one of the accounts you created.
  • Now open File Manager, you find a mapped drive called P:Public
  • This confirmed that your user account, permissions and the network shares on your NAS are working
Test you can open a network share in macOS
  • From the Desktop of macOS locate and select Go – Connect to Server 
  • When the Connect to Server window opens type the following:
smb://the ip address of your nas/Public
  • When prompted enter the user name and password for one of the accounts you created on your NAS.
  • Click Connect.
  • Open Finder.
  • Confirm that you can access your Public folder. 
  • Dismount your Public folder by clicking on the eject button. You will find a small eject button next to your network share in the sidebar of Finder.
Useful resources
Reference materials