Nextcloud FAQ
General
To do this, select the institution (the authentication provider) under Login Options and then enter your local user account and password.
The list of participating institutions can be found on the website
organizations in bwSync&Share-network .
Users of institutions of the bwSync&Share network and the DFN Cloud:
You can register yourself for the service:
To do so, click on the button "Member of the bwSync&Share network" on the website https://bwsyncandshare.kit.edu, select your institution and log in with the login data of your home account (user name and password).
Then follow the instructions to register for the service and you will be logged in directly to the bwSync&Share service.
Unfortunately, it is not possible at this time to prevent you from having to agree to the terms of use again after the first login, even if you have already agreed to them during registration.
Members of the Helmholtz Centres:
You can find the instructions for using bwSync&Share on the Helmholtz Cloud page.
Users of other facilities (guests):
A user participating in the service can invite you as a guest to a file or folder by sharing the folder with you. (s. https://help.bwsyncandshare.kit.edu/english/126.php#Share ).
You will then receive a welcome email. Click on the button "Register as guest" at the end of this e-mail. On the page that opens, set a password. Then log in with your email address and this password. You must confirm the terms of use the first time you log in
The group admins of our university can increase your storage up to 200 GB. Please contact the local support team (the helpdesk) at your university.
As a guest user, you do not have your own storage space, but can only access the data that other users have shared with you.
Is it allowed to store personal data?
However, hhe user himself has to ensure that no sensitive personal data within the meaning of Art. 9 of the General data protection regulation, data with illegal content or data that violates the copyright or property rights of third parties are stored.
Students and employees of institutions in the bwSync&Share network or the DFN Cloud can deregister from the bwSync&Share service via the website https://bwidm.scc.kit.edu/ .
Deregistration initiates the deprovisioning process, which is started automatically after an employee leaves an institution (see https://help.bwsyncandshare.kit.edu/56.php). Within this process, the data and account are then deleted at a later date.
For guest users, the deprovisioning process is started when a user has not logged in for a year.
Tips and Tricks
Since synchronization can lead to authorized users inadvertently deleting data on the server by deleting data on their end device, the service is not suitable for the sole storage of data that is not stored on any other device.
You should therefore create your own backup of your data outside the bwSync&Share folder so that no data is lost if files are accidentally deleted.
Further information can be found on the website Tips and tricks for using bwSync&Share .
Functionalities
To share a folder or a file with another user, click on the sign with the three connected dots to the right of the file or folder name and then select "Share" from the menu that appears on the right.
Then enter the user's full e-mail address in the input field that says "Name".
(Autocomplete is disabled in bwSync&Share for privacy reasons).
Then the name of the user known to bwSync&Share for this e-mail address will appear below it and you click on the button with this name. After that the user will receive an e-mail informing him/her that the folder or file has been shared.
If bwSync&Share does not yet know this email address the button "Invite guest" appears.
Click on this button and a window appears in which you enter the name of the new user and then click on "Invite user and create share".
A welcome mail is then sent to the user and the new user can either register for the service as a user of an authorized institution or as a guest.
Each account has only one email address and no other email addresses can be added to an account. For users who log in via Shibboleth, the email address is transmitted from the IdP of the participating institution to bwIDM and thus to bwSync&Share.
All files and folders are automatically stored encrypted on the server. This eliminates the need to encrypt individual folders.
The integrated end-to-end encryption in the Nextcloud software used does not work together with the activated server-side encryption.
If you absolutely need end-to-end encryption, there is the Cryptomator software.
Since, in our experience, data loss can occur when using Cryptomator in conjunction with server-side encryption, we cannot recommend using Cryptomator.
If you use Cryptomator, you should back up the data elsewhere to be sure that you do not lose any data.
After the transfer, the folder or file files will be displayed in a subdirectory called "transferred from ..." for this user. (Before the changeover, these folders were visible in the top folder level).
The previous owner loses all permissions for this item and must be re-invited if necessary.
Each account has only one email address and no other email addresses can (yet) be added to an account.
To transfer a folder or file to another user, click the colored circle in the upper right corner with your initial letter or profile picture and click Settings.Then click Share in the drop-down list on the left and click the "Select file or folder to transfer" button.
If you want to transfer a folder, go into that folder and click on "select" without clicking on a single file.
If you want to transfer a file, select the file and then click on "select".
Attention: There will be no automatic e-mail be sent to the user to whom you want to transfer the item. Instead, the user will receive a notification on the website and must agree to the transfer.
It may take a few minutes to transfer the folder.
After the successful transfer, you will receive a corresponding notification on the website.
You will lose all permissions on the item when you transfer it and must be invited to the folder again if you want to continue to have access to the folder or file.
Attention: As this process does not always work without errors, you should back up the data elsewhere before transferring a folder and also back up a list of the shares that exist for this folder and the data in this folder.
In the event of a problem, please contact your organisation's helpdesk, who can then create a ticket for second-level support. We are working together with Nextcloud to resolve this issue.
If a person with whom the data was shared deletes these files, the files will also be moved to the "deleted files" folder of this person.
All other people with whom this data was shared will no longer have access to these files.
To recover a deleted file, click on "deleted files" in the bottom left corner of the web browser and select the file(s) to be recovered by checking the box. Then click "Actions" at the top of the page, and then click "Restore".
This group contains all users who log in to bwSync&Share via the institution's identity provider.
Group administrators can be named for each of these groups, who can view all members of this group and change the storage space for individual users.
The group administrators can be named by the authorized persons and then receive the corresponding authorizations from the operator of the service.
After logging in, group administrators will see the "Users" item on the service website if they click on the colored circle with their initial letters in the top right-hand corner. If you select this item, you will see a list of all users who belong to your institution's group.
On this page you can make the following changes for these user accounts:
- Change the storage space size (the "quota") of individual users.
- Deactivate users
- Deleting user accounts and their data
How can I, as the local administrator of my group, view and change the storage space of a user?
To see the storage space of the users in the group for which you are entered as group admin, after logging in to bwSync&Share, click on the colored circle with your initial letter in the top right corner and click on "Users" in the menu that then appears.
This will give you a list of all users at your institution.
To change a user's quota, click on the pencil in that user's row in the right margin.
Under "Quota", click in the field that says "Select user quota" and select a value there or enter the desired value including the unit GB, e.g. 100 GB. Then click Enter. The maximum value you can enter is 200 GB.
What is the bwSupport-Portal and how can I register for the bwSupport-Portal as a helpdesk employee of a participating facility?
The bwSupport portal is the interface between the first-level support of the facilities participating in the bwSync&Share service and the operator of the service.
As an employee of the helpdesk of a participating institution (first-level support), you can report problems or requests to the operator of the service via the bwSupport portal that you cannot solve or answer yourself (second-level support).
The login to the bwSupport portal is done via Shibboleth.
To be able to report requests or problems via this portal and assign them directly to the bwSync&Share support unit, you must first register with the bwSupport portal and request access to the portal.
To do this, log in via Shibboleth on the https://bw-support.scc.kit.edu and then click on "Register" under "My data".
Then fill out the registration form and as soon as the authorization has been set by the operators of the bwSupport portal, you will be informed by e-mail. (Prerequisite for the release of the authorization is that you have been designated by your institution as a helpdesk employee for bwSync&Share. If this is not the case, you will be asked by the authorized person of the institution whether the release of the authorization is desired by the institution).
Afterwards you have access to your support group and can create and edit tickets and also see all tickets created by other members of your support group. When creating tickets, please assign them to the support unit bwSync&Share (under Second Level -> bwToos). This way you ensure that the ticket ends up with the responsible persons right away.
On the page https://bw-support.scc.kit.edu you will also find a link with further instructions on how to use the bwSupport portal.
In this case there are 2 accounts in bwSync&Share that are connected to the same email address. In this case, please contact the helpdesk at your institution so that they can open a ticket for second-level support via the bwSupportPortal. In consultation with the affected user, the unneeded (guest) account will then be deleted.
Only after the deletion of the second account is a clear invitation of the user possible.
The bwSync&Share website is not displayed correctly.
In case of initial errors in connection with calling up bwsyncandshare.kit.edu, please delete the cache/temporary data of your browser used.
Check whether the use works properly afterwards.
How can it happen that the "Share" function is not displayed?
Please take a screenshot of the error message and send it to the first level support of your institution with the request to send this screenshot together with the error message to the second level support.
What to do if your account is locked?
From experience, it may happen that users who use an iOS client are disabled.
This problem has been forwarded to the Nextcloud company, but we need log files from affected users so that the Nextcloud company can fix this error.
Therefore, please send the iOS log files, which you can find under "more" -> "settings" -> "advanced" -> "show log file", to the first-level support of your institution with the request to forward these log files to the second-level support.
We will then reactivate your account so that you can log in again and use the bwSync&Share service again.
There is no logout button
We are working on making this function available to you in the future.
If Office files are edited simultaneously via the online editor and locally via the client, different versions of the file may be created during synchronisation.
If a document is edited by several users simultaneously via the online editor AND locally, the local version does not contain the changes made in the online editor during this time.
In this case, the changes that were last saved or uploaded via synchronisation overwrite the changes made by the other users.
When installing and starting the Windows client (in Autostart), several system error messages of the type "The execution of the code cannot continue because QT5ml.dll was not found..." are displayed.
This is a known problem and has been fixed by the software manufacturer in client version 3.x.
Please install a newer client if you are experiencing this problem.
There is an error message when accessing bwSync&Share with the Linux desktop environment KDE: "Access prohibited - Your login token is invalid or expired"
A workaround for this can be found at https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues/1412#issuecomment-540458549
Some files are constantly uploaded to the server, even if they are not modified
It is possible that another program may change the modification date of the file. If the file uses the .eml extension, Windows automatically and continuously changes this file unless you remove
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\PropertySystem\PropertyHandlers
from the Windows registry. You can find further information under
http://petersteier.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/windows-indexer-changes-modification-dates-of-eml-files/
Synchronization stops if an attempt is made to synchronize that is deeper than 100 subdirectories
The client was deliberately limited to the synchronization of no more than 100 subdirectories. This hard limit exists to protect against bugs like symbolic link loops. If a deeply nested directory is excluded from synchronization, it will be listed with other ignored files and directories on the "Not synchronized" tab in the "Activity" area.
This problem can be solved by setting fs.inotify.max_user_watches sysctl to a higher value.
This can be done temporarily: echo 524288 > /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
or permanently by adjusting /etc/sysctl.conf
If you find that the results of synchronizations are unreliable, please make sure that the folder you synchronize to is not shared with other synchronization applications.
Synchronizing the same directory with Nextcloud and other synchronization software such as Unison, rsync, Microsoft Windows Offline Folders or other cloud services such as Dropbox or Microsoft SkyDrive is not supported and should not be attempted. In the worst case, synchronizing folders or files via Nextcloud and other synchronization software or services may result in data loss.