Connect your storage

Files transferred through your site live on your storage, on your premises or in your own cloud account. This page is the Portal half of connecting it. The Connector half is What the Connector is.

Until a Connector is connected, nobody can transfer files. The site overview says so.

What connecting means

You mint a single use enrollment code in the Portal. You install the Storage Connector on a machine next to your storage. You paste the code into the Connector. The Connector contacts the Portal directly, proves the code, receives its identity, and from then on dials out to your site on its own.

The code binds one Connector to one site, and nothing else.

Mint the code

1. Open your site and choose Storage.
2. Choose Connect storage.
3. The wizard mints the code and shows it. Copy it now.

Three facts about the code:

• It is shown once. There is no way to see it again.
• It works once.
• It expires. The default lifetime is 24 hours.

If you lose it, choose Cancel code in the wizard and mint a fresh one.

If minting is refused

The wizard says	What it means
Your plan has no spare connector slots	Every connector your plan includes is already claimed. Disconnect an unused one, or add connectors from Plan and billing
Your site is briefly unreachable	The site's server cannot be reached right now. Try again in a minute
This site has no active subscription	The site is not on a live plan. See Plan and billing

Install the Connector

The wizard offers two paths and shows the commands with your code already filled in.

Download and install, for Windows and Linux. Download from sftp.cloud/downloads. Each download is one archive holding the installer and its signature; extract it, keep both files together, run the installer, and open the Connector's own admin page at http://localhost:8883 on that machine. Its first run wizard asks for the code.

Docker. Start the container next to your storage, then enroll it:

docker run -d --name sc-conn -v sc-conn-data:/data \
  --log-opt max-size=50m --log-opt max-file=5 \
  docker.io/syncplify/sc-conn

The named volume is what keeps the Connector's identity across image updates. Without it, an updated container is a new Connector and has to enroll again.

Full instructions: Install on Windows, Install on Linux, Run in Docker.

Wait for it to appear

The wizard's last step polls, and the Connector appears the moment it enrolls. You can also close the wizard and come back later; the code stays valid until it is used or expires.

If nothing has happened after ten minutes, the wizard says so. Check that the Connector is installed and running, and that the machine it runs on can reach the internet.

What the Storage page shows afterwards

Column	Meaning
Connected	The Connector was seen recently and is serving your site
Not seen recently	It has been quiet longer than expected. Files on it are unreachable
Not seen yet	It enrolled but has never linked. Create a virtual file system in its own admin console and it appears here as soon as it links
Version	The Connector software version it is running
Last seen	When it last checked in

Disconnecting a Connector

Choose Disconnect. The Connector is refused from then on. Custom folders on it are removed from your users and kept as removed folders for a later restore; a user whose starting folder was on it goes back to Automatic folders. Connecting the same machine again starts with Reset pairing on the Connector's dashboard. The details are on Storage and connectors.

Files themselves are never touched. They stay exactly where they are, on your storage.

Disconnecting frees the connector slot on your plan immediately.

Re-enrolling

Sometimes a Connector's link to your site is broken but the Connector itself is fine: after a move to a dedicated server, for example, or after the site's server was replaced. The Storage page then shows Your storage needs to be reconnected.

1. Choose Generate re-enrollment code.
2. In the Connector's admin console, open the dashboard and choose Re-enroll.
3. Paste the code together with your portal address.

Re-enrollment codes are also shown once and work once. If the site has more than one Connector, the Portal cannot tell which one needs it; contact support.

A different notice, Your Connector's clock is off, is not a re-enrollment case: the fix is the system time on the Connector's machine. See Storage and connectors.

What to do next

The Connector is connected, but it does not yet serve any storage. Define what it serves: Virtual file systems.