Syncplify Server! v6.2.12 released

Importance of this update: SECURITY HOT-FIX
What’s changed?
  • Fixed a vulnerability in one of the libraries used by the web UIs (SuperAdmin, Admin, and WebClient); for the record, this vulnerability was only exploitable in npm (node.js) so within the context of our software was non-exploitable, but we figured it would be better to update that 3rd-party library to its newer and bug-free version anyway.
  • Upgraded Go compiler, standard library and toolchain to the latest 1.21.2

IMPORTANT NOTE: those who are running the “worker” system service under a different account (not System or LocalSystem) will need to re-configure the service to run under such account after upgrading from any version number <= 6.1.12)

Upgrading from v6.x.y is a simple and fairly automatic process: simply download the latest version from the official download page, and install it over the existing version, all of your settings and license will be kept.

If, instead, you’re upgrading from an older (v4/v5) version, you find the upgrade instructions in our knowledge base.

Thank you all for trusting our software with your secure file transfers!


Syncplify Server! v6.1.9 released

Importance of this update: NORMAL
Fixed
  • The Zip function in the scripting language now correctly supports Windows and Linux compatible encrypted zip archives
  • Several minor glitches in the UIs (SuperAdmin and Admin) have been fixed, if you experienced some issues with the UIs this is definitely an update you want to perform

Upgrading from v6.x.y is a simple and fairly automatic process: simply download the latest version from the official download page, and install it over the existing version, all of your settings and license will be kept.

If, instead, you’re upgrading from an older (v4/v5) version, you find the upgrade instructions in our knowledge base.

Thank you all for trusting our software with your secure file transfers!


Syncplify Server! v6.1.7 released

Importance of this update: NORMAL
Fixed
  • Label in the Admin UI indicating the “total number of sessions” since last restart and overall
  • The aes256-cbc algorithm in the SSH/SFTP configuration is now correctly persisted when added to the list of active encryption algorithms
  • Corrected an Admin UI glitch that was introduced in v6.1.4 and prevented adding “permission override” items to existing user accounts
New
  • Added the ability to use markdown in Admin UI and WebClient! disclaimers
  • Added the ability to specify a custom title to be displayed just above the disclaimer in WebClient!’s login page

Upgrading from v6.x.y is a simple and fairly automatic process: simply download the latest version from the official download page, and install it over the existing version, all of your settings and license will be kept.

If, instead, you’re upgrading from an older (v4/v5) version, you find the upgrade instructions in our knowledge base.

Thank you all for trusting our software with your secure file transfers!


A much improved Admin UX is coming…

First of all, let’s clarify: UX is not UI.

While UI refers to the User Interface (what a human-machine interface looks like), UX refers to the User eXperience (how a human-machine interface behaves).

With Syncplify Server! V6 we think we’ve done a pretty good job at UI… but there are things in our UX that could be improved. For that reason, one of the v6.x upcoming releases will be focused on UX, and on ways to improve and make it easier for an administrator to manage our software.

In order to do that, we had to start with identifying what could be done better, and we have indeed identified a few areas, namely:

Validation

The current strategy is: validate everything, and report all mistakes in a technical way that overlaps with the fields our REST API manages. This is probably still the best for those very few people who know the inner workings of our REST API inside out. But let’s be honest, how many of them are there? We cannot expect our customers to have this type of knowledge, they didn’t design our software, and they don’t only have our software to manage in their daily routine.

So, we need to go from: validate –> report everything (in tech notation)

To: sanitize –> validate –> report if needed (in plain English)

Most things can actually be sanitized. For example, let’s say you created a Virtual Folder for a User, but forgot that all virtual folders must be POSIX-root-based (i.e. begin with a forward-slash). We can simply add that leading forward-slash for you, and not even bother reporting a validation error.

Validation errors will still be reported (but in plain English) only when there is no unambiguous way to automatically sanitize the contents of a field that were filled-in wrong by the administrator.

As a result, our Admin interface will produce a lot fewer error messages (as many mistakes will be automatically sanitized) and the few errors that will be displayed to the administrator will be in plain English, thus far easier to understand and know what to change to fix them.

Reduce the “nulls” to check via REST API

Most modern OpenAPI-compliant JavaScript frameworks are not designed to automatically generate the logic to check for null conditions in every return value. The result is that this logic often has to be written-in by hand by the developer, which leads to bugs and errors.

We’re working hard to ensure that our REST API always returns a predictable set of non-null fields for every call. This will make the UI-side logic abundantly easier and cleaner to design and develop.


Syncplify Server! v6.0.7 released

Today we released Syncplify Server! v6.0.7; here’s what’s new and improved in this version.

Fixed
  • If the Admin made two distinct configuration mistakes in two distinct parts of the Admin UI, saving the configuration would then become impossible
  • The list of addressable Users was limited to 20 items, unless filters were applied; this limit has now been removed
Improved
  • Restore/import functions from old V4/V5 backups have been further improved
  • Better and more consistent default values are used when no value (empty value) for each configuration setting is imported from a backup

Upgrading from v6.0.x is a simple and fairly automatic process: simply download the latest version from the official download page, and install it over the existing version, all of your settings and license will be kept.

If, instead, you’re upgrading from an older (v4/v5) version, you find the upgrade instructions in our knowledge base.

Thank you all for trusting our software with your secure file transfers!


Syncplify Server! v6.0.6 released

Today we released Syncplify Server! v6.0.6; here’s what’s new and improved in this version.

Fixed
  • If an Admin profile was incompletely imported from an old backup, all Admin profiles of that virtual site would be non-editable
  • The list of VFS selectable as Home-VFS for a User profile was limited to 20 items
Improved
  • Restore/import functions from old V4/V5 backups have been further improved
  • Re-activation of the same license on the same “system ID” can now be performed autonomously by the SuperAdmin

Upgrading from v6.0.x is a simple and fairly automatic process: simply download the latest version from the official download page, and install it over the existing version, all of your settings and license will be kept.

If, instead, you’re upgrading from an older (v4/v5) version, you find the upgrade instructions in our knowledge base.

Thank you all for trusting our software with your secure file transfers!


Micro-introduction to V6’s PowerShell Module

Alright, so you are interested in managing Syncplify Server! V6 (the upcoming version, currently in development at the time this post is being written) via PowerShell.

You’re in luck. We have a PowerShell Module for that. But how do you get started?

Here’s a bare-bone micro quickstart for you. More will come with the official documentation when it’s ready.

Let’s take a look at the configuration first:

Pretty empty, uh? So, with Get-SS6Configuration you can see what’s in your PowerShell Module’s current configuration. Let’s populate it a little bit.

First of all, you’ll have to set your API base URL, your SuperAdmin (or Admin, it depends on what you want to do) username and password, and – if you’re using a self-signed certificate – you’ll also have to skip the certificate’s validation. You can do all of that with this command:

Set-SS6Configuration -Username "sa" -Password "your_password_here" -BaseUrl "https://127.0.0.1:6443/api/v1" -SkipCertificateCheck

Now let’s see what happens when we call Get-SS6Configuration again:

Good, but we still need an Access Token to call the actual server’s API, and in order to get such Token we need to log in (which returns the token) and then set the token in the above configuration. Fortunately PowerShell allows us to do so with just 2 lines of code:

$res = Invoke-SS6SaLogin
Set-SS6Configuration -AccessToken $res.token

We’re good to go. Since we logged in as a SuperAdmin (by calling Invoke-SS6SaLogin) we can now invoke any SuperAdmin API as documented. Let’s try to acquire our own SuperAdmin profile for example:

This, together with the documentation of every module function you find in our PowerShell Module’s GitHub repository, should get you started very quickly and easily.


Updated Syncplify Server! V6 PowerShell Module (Open Source)

Yes, you’re reading this correctly. As part of the new trajectory of our company, we have begun to open source some of the components and modules that are not part of our core intellectual property.

One of the first repositories we decided to publish is the PowerShell Module to administer an instance of Syncplify Server! V6 via command line.

You can find the module repository on GitHub here: https://github.com/syncplify/ss6powershelladmin

For those who don’t want to deal with source code, and just want to install the module in PowerShell, you can do this by typing a single line in your PowerShell:

Install-Module SS6AdminModule

And here’s a screenshot for the curious minds out there: